OVER

'Over' is a short film, directed by Jörn Threlfall. The film is told through a series of static shots, enabling Threlfall to create a very different approach to the telling of his story. This enables the audience to be involved in the unravelling of the story. This technique largely relies on interest in order to keep his audience interested. Threlfall explains this by saying, "I make the viewer be the detective." He goes on to explain that he, "Didn't want to tell it in a conventional way. The story was so sad and desperate it needed a different way of telling... It's like shards and fragments, it was quite an intense way of making sure the viewer stayed with it. In the cinema I see viewers leaning forward, as if they want to go closer but can't."

The film starts with a slow zoom into the road, where the story takes place. The zoom signifies an acceptance for the viewer, into the story, allowing them to be part of what is to come. However, this dynamic use of the camera is quickly transformed into a series of static shots. These static shots capture the raw, reality of the story, and its minute effect on everyday life. The use of long-shots means that the audience wants to get closer to the action of the story but are unable to. This creates both a physical and metaphorical barrier between the viewer and the story, as the viewer is unable to see the action, but also unable to truly discover the details of what happened. This causes the audience to feel detached as the role of an outsider is imposed on them. This enables the director to depict the story in a very raw and unconventional manner. Towards the end of the film, a handheld camera is used to capture an over the shoulder shot of a policeman. This allows the viewer to be closer to the action, yet they are now unable to see the whole picture. This adds an air of mystery in the opposite sense to before as they feel part of the action but cannot observe its entirety from a far.

Sound is used very cleverly to maintain audience interest until the end of the short. The peaceful sound at the start captures the serenity of the end of the day, once the action is over, adding an element of sadness to the film. The heightened sounds of birds chirping, cars driving, water washing the pavement and trees rustling allows the audience to be aware that something is going to happen. The use of silence over the shots of the evidence bags helps to contrast the serenity and detachment of the police station to the rawness of what took place outside. The thud as the body hit the car created an extremely harsh end to the film, with the single noise of an aeroplane to finish the film. The aeroplane can be seen as being suggestive of the continuation of life, despite the tragedies that take place every day.



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