Two men in a room, one tied to a chair, the other with a table of sharp instruments.
Just an incredible twenty minutes performance-driven film set up by an enthralling monologue. Directed by Marc Thomas, we are placed in an uncomfortable situation inside a room with two men. One gagged and tied to a chair, the other with a table full of sharp instruments before him. Javier has a story to tell Michael a bout a fateful event from his childhood, and in so doing, reveals to Michael that he’s made a terrible mistake.
The film was inspired by two wonderful scenes, one from the Spanish film Intacto (2001, dir. Juan Carlos Fresnadillo) in which Max von Sydow delivers a haunting monologue describing his experience as a boy in a concentration camp, and the famous scene from Jaws (1975, dir. Steven Spielberg) in which Robert Shaw delivers his haunting description of the sinking of the Indianapolis, and the ensuing carnage brought on by frenzied sharks. Both scenes describe pivotal moments in the characters’ lives, and provoke us into seeing the described scenes in our mind’s eye, prompting us to watch the “movie in our heads.” I wanted to create a similar experience for the audience, but push it even further by making the scene playing on screen so tense and uncomfortable that they’d want to escape into the scene being described in the monologue, the movie playing in their heads, and when that got uncomfortable as well, they’d realize there’s no safety!
Once you press play you just can’t stop it, the situation and monologue just strengthens by the minute as Javier goes through his sharp instruments. The sound of cold air is the only soundtrack the film needed to support the staggering cinematography, and the actors just took care of the rest.
