Palm Springs Shortfest: ‘Rustling’ Is a Defiant Cry for Tenderness

Some young men have an instinct to hunt and gravitate towards more traditionally masculine activities, but what about those whose inclination is to care or nurture? In Tom Furniss’ carefully plotted short, Rustling, one boy vows to protect a baby lamb in an environment where the animal is instantly in danger.

The film opens with a newly dead lamb being cut open by a father and son. He is teaching his eldest son how to take the lamb apart so they can eat, but the younger son arrives on the windy hill just as a baby lamb curiously looks on. There is an instant connection between the younger son and the baby lamb, but this is a place where the boys will be taught to act like men. The father refuses to allow his sons to be soft.

The younger son wants to keep the baby lamb as a pet, and his older brother even jokingly asks him if they are going to run away together. The baby lamb and the younger son are both innocents–they do have a lot of growing up to do, but the younger son is already resistant to a life that is being thrust upon him. Unlike his father, the younger son is gentler and curious. Rustling is a harsh reminder of how many parents–of all kinds of circumstances–thrust their beliefs and lifestyles on their children.

Furniss plops this family in the New Zealand countryside, so his young character’s actions are made with no outside influences. The younger boy doesn’t think it’s too late for his older brother either, and the bond between his young actors is quite solid. There is enough violence in the world and enough ugliness. The toxicity of man only destroys, infuriates, and offers only selfish solutions. Rustling is a hopeful indication that young men can listen and love just as intensely as they can be masculine and macho.