September - Short Film Review

September is an excellent BAFTA winning written and directed by Esther May Campbell. The film is about a young man, Marvin, who works in a motorway service station but his life is suddenly changed forever when someone extraordinary enters his life. 

The main concept of this film is the time and life constantly passing by whilst also moving forward from a life that you could be trapped in. The first three shots in the film include a car on a motorway, streetlamp and electricity pylons, these all paint an image of where we are and what the story might entail, this is all done from the very start but we are yet to find this out. We first meet the character Marvin in a field gazing up in the sky at the sun and the planes passing over him, this shot also can defines Marvin's whole character, he's gazing up at the sky, intrigued by the unknown, the first perception of the protagonist is extremely important. We can clearly see that Marvin is interested in nature and the idea of freedom from the way that he interacts with animals. This will help me in future projects as I now understand how important each scene is and I can also add something similar to this in my screenwriting assignment. After this we're then introduced to the character who causes the inciting incident. However the first clear sign we see from Marvin about the life he wants to be living is his reaction to a colleague when the tell him that they are going to university. However, the antagonist, who he believes is his best friend can clearly be soon holding him back as he mocks this colleague for her decisions. 

This is the first sign of conflict that we see and it is mainly between him and his friend. However this takes a turn and our focus is shifted to the inciting incident, this is introduced nearly five minutes into the film and we see Marvin witness “magic” for the first time in his life. Campbell really draws our attention to this by showcasing the floating girl and the shock on Marvin’s face as his life in now changed forever. The next few shots consist of moving traffic once again highlighting how Marvin’s life is now moving forward after witnessing this.

We have now entered act two or the confrontation stage, where Marvin now has to deal with this new found knowledge and we’re building up to the plot point as the tension is increasing. Once again we are taken back to the field where we see Marvin at the start, however this time he is now there to figure out is going on. He decides to approach the girl after she collapses but is chased away by her dog and cannot explore this knowledge. We now are shown more shots of him still trapped in his old life to try and get the audience to understand this new situation that he’s in.

After Marvin and his friend attend a leaving party, we finally get to see him confront this new world that he’s entered into, we’ve been hooked this whole time as this is the point we’ve been waiting for. Once again, as soon as Marvin meets this girl properly, he does everything he can to help her, but then, this world is ripped away from him as they leave and he is left behind. The sequence is extremely well shot to match the story as Marvin is shown chasing the trailer down the road, literally chasing the life that he wants. In act three or the resolution stage Marvin has now quit his job as he can no longer go back to his old life after this discovery he has made. On the bridge that we first see Marvin on going one way to work, he is now ready to go the other way after his life has changed, he’s ready to move on with the confidence he needs to chase down a new life. At this point the antagonist “his friend” is seen walking in the opposite direction, still trapped in his old life, there’s no communication between the two and for Marvin thats all the closure he needs to move on. This subtle ending to the film really shows that despite the magic that Marvin has experienced its all about what you do with these experiences after that really shapes your life.