One quote that easily summarizes Freeman’s essay “On the Form of the Video Essay” is that “As a form the video essay tests the mettle of the literary essay—personal, lyrical, contemplative, improvisational, performative, [and] critical.” And the fact that there isn’t really a form that you can follow step by step to achieve a memorable nonfiction video essay.

Using Freeman’s video essay criteria as a template, one can investigate Bresland’s “Mangoes” and understand his intentions and utilization of film techniques. For instance, one of the reasons that makes this film so brilliant is Bresland’s use of juxtaposition, poeticness, and his use of sound and image integrated together in a cohesive unity.

In the beginning, the father first narrates the story, while he shows images of his wife wearing the Baby Bjorn and ambling around with a smile pasted on her face. He chooses to film her in nature, while she carries her beautiful baby boy on her chest with her arms free, while he tells the audience with a voice-over how he’s never work it before or given it a chance (0:29). He then chooses to transition the scene into with an interview with his landlord—a masculine, tattooed man who rides motorcycles and how he thinks it’s “gay” (1:07). This is excellent juxtaposition makes the audience analyze and critically think about both perspectives of how useful yet silly the Bjorn is; in addition, it also allows them to come to their own conclusions about the baby device. In this way, this self-reflexivity from the narrator, whether it is unaware or not, permits the audience to engage in a conversational piece, in which the narrator speaks directly to the audience—a recommendation that Freeman exerts.

Another example of Bresland’s use of mismatching sound and moving images is when he states that “If baby loves, I love it” and pans the screen to a floating shovel in the ocean. This image makes it seem as if a child accidentally left it on the beach and it washed away or that he or she was playing with it, and it happened to drift away (3:09). This image is common and really relatable; it has a childlike aesthetic to it that appears to give the audience remnants of feelings of nostalgia. Somehow the shovel seems isolated and drifting, similarly to how parenting is just going with the flow of things that always ebbs, weaves, and changes constantly, which make it difficult to adapt to. You can find appreciation for this image somehow.

And finally, one of the most memorable and crucial images—which is mimicked in the title “Mangoes—is the end, where the father is cutting mangoes for his son and feeding it to him, despite the fact that his wife told him not to since she’s allergic to mangoes. And after searching on Google within nine seconds, he discovered that allergies are hereditary, but somehow doesn’t feel that bad about almost potentially killing his child (6:12). He states in narration format, “I can tell you more about the Harley than I can about parenting and I’ve never driven a Harley,” which only means that there isn’t really a parenting manual to tell him what’s right or wrong or how to raise a baby properly (6:45).

The father asks the question as to why he did this and came to a few conclusions, but only one conclusion stood out—one that spoke the truth, that spoke volumes about his character and his actions; he didn’t want his son to become a bubble boy, so he inoculated him (7:11). He only wants to protect his son and be the best father her could be, but at the expense of potentially being branded as an “idiot father.” To tie this all in, Freeman implies that the answers to the questions you ask are supposed to be incomprehensible and unanswerable, and Bresland does just that. There isn’t just one simple answer to everything, since people’s lives and psychology are too complex to take into account.