Set Research Film No. 6: Echo

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Echo; dir. Lewis Arnold, 2013

Echo stood out amongst our list as one of the most narratively accomplished and polished pieces, with a longer runtime of 18 minutes to facilitate the more fleshed out, psychological themes at hand. There's resonance here with the patience of Slap and the audience manipulation of Over, as the portrait of a troubled young adult is painted with a delicate hand, neither judgemental or coddling to the girl's issues.

Our protagonist is played wonderfully as she strives for resolution to the trauma of her father's death, following the personal and social conflicts that she encounters in the pursuit of such resolution; her psychological deliberation manifests itself into a recurring narrative that she plays out with the strangers around her, reliving the moment that she heard of her father's accident. The line between the empathy of strangers and an alienation of mental health issues is trodden carefully as each new subject takes her issue in an empathetic or hostile light.

The story is established in an unusual fashion to the effect of giving such an artistic, unbiased approach; a scenario lacking any peripherals of context is given to play out in dramatic fashion for the first scene, with the rest of the runtime acting as an elaboration into the reasons why it occurred. Our perspective as a viewer is cast through levels of intrigue, empathy and discontent to a neutral, enlightened position by the story's end. Clear is the intention to address the often overlooked, but commonplace trauma of grief that pervades life; the result is a careful and winding urban character study.

In terms of technicality, the establishment of a cold and greyed city-setting is notable as a backdrop to much of the intimate action, shot uncomfortably with a shaking, close lens; the fluctuation in camera distancing between episodes of trauma develops a great empathy for the protagonist's mental instability, and emphasises the intensity of such episodes wonderfully. Lauren Carse's leading performance is well-nuanced, with perhaps the legitimacy of the scenario being a little broken by some of the surrounding cast. The contained production of the piece does crack through the seams in terms of technical features at points (mostly in interior audio and lighting effects), but given the wonderful narrative arc and implementation of issues here, it is incredibly easy to forgive such a well- production. 

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