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★★★
Directed by: #LukeCouch
Starring: #KatieHamiltonCooke, #AlexKenny, #MaryCouch and #NinaHontebeyrie
Short Film Review by: #RachelPullen
The Apocalypse is kind of lame. You can’t go to strip clubs or bowling, you can’t even buy sweet, sweet Belgium buns from our precious English institution Greggs. For the apocalypse means all the sexy ladies...dust, bowling lanes...dust... buns...dust, my sense of desire to eat anything but buns...dust.
As well as the above there is also going to be the sense of loneliness, depending on what the wipeout was caused by it seems likely that loved ones are going to die, and we all at this point must learn to fight for ourselves and adapt to being by ourselves.
Echoes is a #shortfilm following one young lady known as the Wanderer [played by Katie Hamilton-Cooke] who is navigating the new post apocalyptic world. She sees no one, talks to no one, she is completely isolated.
She is absent from us also, as the viewer we never really see her identity, hidden by the wears that protect her from the new world, covered in her gas mask, she is a stranger to us, we lack human connection as much as she does, director Luke Couch allows the sense of isolation to ooze from this short.
But, however alone we think we are there is always going to be another survivor, someone else around the corner and it’s not long before our young lady bumps into other folk who are trying to navigate themselves through this wasteland, it’s not long until we are made very aware that even our fellow citizen has now become a threat.
With Echoes, Couch makes our invitation into this world personal and intimate, and despite the lack of connection we are allowed to make with any of the characters, we are still immersed into the world of the Wanderer. Using close up camerawork we feel like we are following her on her path, on her journey, and that connection draws us deeper into her world.
Borderline a silent movie, Echoes draws from other films such as Here Alone, the female protagonist finding her way through the new world is something as an audience we have been exposed to before from storytellers and yet it still holds its own ground with unique touches, such as lack of dialogue.
And so what can we take away from this week’s installment loyal reader, oh that’s right, don’t take the everyday for granted, and don’t ever think there is always a next time when you turn down an evening of bowling, strippers and Belgium buns to stay in and watch crappy Game of Thrones, because it could be your last.
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