Polaroid | Short Film Nominee

Short Film Nominee October 6, 2021

Polaroid

By Dante Aubain with 6.7

thriller · Short Films · english

The film introduces us to a man in dark clothing, preparing for assumedly a romantic rendezvous. The mood established so far, however, is soon shattered by the arrival of an unexpected, strange guest, a man called Sam. The deliberatelty sudden change and contrast allows the narrative to pull the viewer deeper.

The predominant part of the action comes to develop within the same physical space, efficiently used by the lean cast and crew of the film. The two men, Arthur and Sam, sit across the table from one another, slowly sipping on their black coffee. A sense of something sinister being afoot never leaves the progression of events, until it finally allows itself an expression in the final revelation. The film comes to be marked by suspense, intrigue, mystery and terrible secrets simmering right below the surface, much like the coffee itself.

In order to enrich the story, there is further the attempt to employ the surroundings which are generously strewn (and perhaps a little too generously) with paper and hardbacks of Stephen King, Chuck Palahniuk and Bret Easton Ellis. The space is established as a private, but foreboding house of pleasures, carnal desires, adopting the setting of a gothic castle for an urban, contemporary twenty-first century counterpart. It is, thus, in this dark realm where the two characters bring into action their own malicious intentions and motives, those that threaten to completely consume the world they have conjured so far for the viewer.
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