Cosmic Divide

As part of a mini series that Bertie Gilbert created called 'what's the story here', a collection of very short films in which the viewer is flung into a scenario and has to work out within a few minutes what the plot could be. In this 3 minute short, a young man ends a call with an unknown caller, who through voiceover explains he has not seen in 5 years. At the end of the film, we discover the caller is his twin.

I love these beginning shots as they are so striking and have such a shallow depth of field which means that the lights of the city blur in the background. As the title appears in the background the man walks away out of focus into the blurred lights, showing how he has lost something without the person on the phone. 

The film is made almost entirely through montage editing of the two brothers' lives, except the opening and ending scenes with diegetic sound of the brothers talking. It means that in the short three minutes we have to piece together the locations and the circumstances of the characters, and an exposition and solution can be set up in a short period of time. 

The use of voiceover is particularly important throughout this short film, with the quality edited down to sound like the man was talking on the phone, establishing the position of the person giving the voiceover, whom we presume to be the protagonist, but it is left ambiguous at the end after they meet as to whether it is in fact the protagonist or his twin who is talking. Hints to this are found in the cinematography, most notably the double reflection in the window, which would reflect a dual personality in other circumstances, and the visual imagery of the 'wait' sign signifying the time they have been apart, waiting to see each other again. The man that is outdoors is actually the long lost twin travelling to his brother's apartment, not the brother who we see dial the phone, which is shown through the difference of colour palettes between the interior and exterior locations different costumes. It is concealed by the fact that both twins have the same haircut and therefore makes the ending more of a surprise. 

 

The colour palette of the final scene is much warmer, and after the brother opens the door they are both held in bright light, representing this significant moment in both of their lives. There is still ambiguity as to who called who and why they have been kept apart for so long, so we are kept in suspense until the very end. 

For such a short film I think that the narrative has been developed well as an exposition is clearly set from the start, and there is a cliff-hanger at the end as we question why twins have been kept apart for five years, and we want to know what the brother at the door will say. Though it is beautifully shot and the colour palettes are so bold, I wish there could have been another way to show the characters' situations without a voiceover and the montage editing. In retrospect, it makes sense to use this editing as it actually shows the brothers' different lives without giving too much away, and it it seems that using this format to create this narrative in a short space of time is the best way to go about it. If this were a longer film, the voiceover may not have been needed as more could be represented visually, but for a three minute film it is really well executed.