Break

Break

**1/2

Reviewed by: Claire Sawers

An old man has been living in a rundown house in the middle of nowhere. Outside the grass is overgrown; inside the cracks and lines of peeling paint on the walls look almost like wrinkled human flesh in the dim light.

Out of nowhere, a car pulls up and a visitor arrives. The old man is startled. He doesn't know when the last time he had company. He tells his guest that he has been here forever, "wherever here is".

Copy picture

Blurting out his feelings to the visitor, the old man says that in the absence of human contact, or any type of distraction, he feels his brain beginning to shut down, a bit like an "atrophy of consciousness".

The small amount of dialogue in this atmospheric short, filmed in and around Edinburgh, is delivered a little unconvincingly, particularly in a sickening scene where the old man shovels food into his mouth.

What it lacks in substance, however, it makes up for in style, with a series of beautifully framed black-and-white stills and some chilling camera work.

Reviewed on: 31 Oct 2003
Share this with others on...
An old man has been left to live alone in an abandoned, desolate house.

Director: Ian Waugh

Writer: Ian Waugh

Starring: Mike Duffy, Keith Hutcheon

Year: 2003

Runtime: 7 minutes

Country: UK

Festivals:


Search database:


If you like this, try:

As He Lay Falling

DJDT

Versions

Time

Settings from settings.local

Headers

Request

SQL queries from 1 connection

Templates (9 rendered)

Cache calls from 2 backends

Signals