Spinning the Myth Anew: Waiting for Cloto by J. Julian Vacas

What happens when the tapestry of fate unravels, and even the Fates themselves are adrift in a fractured timeline? J. Julian Vacas’ Waiting for Cloto doesn’t just ask the question, it spins it, weaves it, and dances within its tangled strings like a ghost in a loom. An experimental fever dream wrapped in myth and modernity, this short film seduces the viewer with its phantasmagoric poise and poetic ambition.

Cloto, she of the spindle, walks among us in mortal form, seemingly disoriented yet determined. Her quest? To reunite with her mythic sisters and rekindle the loom of destiny. But don’t expect a linear hero’s journey here Vacas trades Aristotelian clarity for a kind of dream-logic montage, more Orphic than Homeric. Time, in this world, is less a river than a shattered mirror.

From the opening frame, the aesthetic grabs you by the soul and whispers in your ear: “This isn’t cinema it’s invocation.” Ethereal mannequins dissolve into the mist like memories refusing to solidify. Starlit silhouettes tower like eldritch titans over glowing priestesses of fate, and close-ups glimmer with electric blues, threading life, thread by luminous thread, through Cloto’s fingers.

Vacas’ direction is the loom’s true backbone, guiding a cast who move not merely as actors but as embodied symbols. Their performances don’t just speak; they resonate ritualistic, restrained, and otherworldly. The costuming is divine in its detail: folkloric embroidery, celestial headdresses, timeless gowns. This is fashion as an oracle. The props, esoteric, symbolic, serve as artifacts from a dimension slightly askew. And the VFX? Think nebulae painted with digital fire, mythic not magic.

Yet for all its visual sorcery, the film occasionally stumbles on the edit’s cutting room floor. At times, the momentum halts—not from narrative choice, but from a few jarring transitions that crack the illusion. And yes, clarity is elusive.

So is Waiting for Cloto for everyone? No. But should it be? Perhaps. It’s less a film to watch and more a rite to experience. A shimmering invocation to the Fates, caught in the warp and weft of modern uncertainty.