Of course, I realize that wishing for more of an artistic piece is rather juvenile criticism, but I wanted to emphasize the point that the writing is good enough to merit a longer film and that there are limits to this short-film format. What does make this short film so great, then? First, it’s not just the writing. While I believe I would enjoy a short story version of this film, the viewpoint would be difficult to maintain in writing. Most of the story appears a simple first-person narrative, but inevitably the first-person thoughts would override our objective view of this man’s life. As a simply example, notice the pan-in on the bedroom. He says that he knew it was his time as we see him lying in bed (around the fourth minute). There’s no way the character could talk about the solitude of this scene without compromising his semi-stoicism. On the other hand, a third-person narrator would take us too far from the character, and the very description of the scene would cause a noise that would defeat the awesome quiet, especially in the next scene where he visits the grave.
I talked to Pryce (email) about this quiet and about my wish to make the film longer. She said that people usually want to see what happens before the climax rather than after, but that while she would love to direct a feature if the right story were to come along, this film maintains its brevity because “when you direct a short, you have to use a more concentrated language,” a sentiment she credits to her mentor for her short film “The Missing Piece.” As an example of this concentrated language, notice the first fifty seconds of this film. We hear the church bells and see the title “The Last Confession,” conjuring an image of the last confessions that are needed to save a soul. Then, we see the church as the view moves from the vaulted ceiling to the human level. A man walks in and meets the stare of a pretty little girl who sits in the pew with her praying mother (or aunt or sitter). The child is obviously restless and makes faces and the man, but she doesn’t get the playful response she would like to have. But the man is not unlikable. He is obviously burdened by something, and that story is what he will tell in the booth. This is less than fifty seconds of film that offers an immediate characterization—and
