Smart, sweet, gentle and touching, "Central Garden" is one of those short films that screams to be made into a feature. Sadly, I have forgotten the filmmaker's name. I have searched and searched my flyers, programs, festival notes and the Internet and still, the information I need eludes me. It's too bad too, because his film is one of the most charming to be seen, and he deserves recognition.

"Central Garden" is concerned with the Asian-American experience in American, in specific, those initial stages of becoming integrated into our way of life. It subtly focuses on a young Korean woman who comes to our country to make her life here. She arrives with almost no English in her vocabulary. At least she has a support system. Her family owns two wig shops, seemingly in California, and she is put to work with one of the younger Westernized sisters in managing one. Her other family members include numerous domineering males, a matriarch who only speaks in her native tongue, and a wonderful Southern woman (married into the family) who sounds like she feel directly out of Texas. Her accent and soft-spoken sugary sweetness add a wonderful humor to the film.

Look - the short takes twenty minutes to exposes us to fantastic insight on what the immigrant experience must surely be like. And it glides through a plot about a romance that is just pure delight. The film is so engaging, and truly wonderful stuff. The Korean immigrant meets a young Japanese man, with almost no English in his vocabulary as well, and they begin a relationship that flowers and blooms before our eyes with such an honest innocence that we are swept into it effortlessly.

And then the ending comes.

Rushed, pointless, contrived, obvious and typical, the 60 seconds that conclude the short negate everything the filmmaker has work so hard to achieve. It's tacked-on and tactless. It's a shame.

The director, in the Q&A after the film, said he wants to develop the film into a feature. He said he would change the ending if he did this. Perhaps it wouldn't make some slick producer grossly rich, but it could become an important Asian-American film and garner tons of critical acclaim and support.

And that is surely reason enough to get it made.

Note:

The film portrays gays and transvestites in a very unflattering light.

Points have been taken off on the Report Card for the atrocious ending. (Take off the ending, the Report Card is A's for script and Final Grade)

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