Nervous Translation

Eight-year-old Yael spends time after school doing homework, quizzing a friend over the phone, and preparing miniscule meals on a doll’s stove. She also illicitly plays back, memorizes, and reenacts the cassettes that her father, working abroad, sends to her mother. Set in Manila in the late 1980s, on the cusp of Typhoon Unsang, Nervous Translation brilliantly illustrates the child’s perception of the world, keeping the camera low to align with her point of view and lingering on details often overlooked by adults. This is an exquisitely subtle and unerring depiction of the delicate world of childhood.