Captured (the opening scenes) (486 hits)
Category: GeneralRating: 1.35 on 11 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by The Yellow Dart (View user info) at 2006-09-25 20:20:25 EDT
Twenty seconds of rustling papers and a distant voice heralding "fuck" pass by on the black screen when finally the screen flicks to life. The scene is of a woman aged forty to fifty years sitting on a bench in a city park. Slowly the camera closes in on her to reveal a smug look of content in her facial expressions as she watches something off to the right of the camera.
She acts in a relaxed manner, slowly shifting her weight, putting her arm upon the back of the bench, which tells us that this is all an act. Any observant eye can see the falsity of the scene, yet the slight shake in the camera and poor background audio coupled with the mysterious start suggest this is no stage. A convenient couple and their golden retriever walk by just behind her.
About three minutes of this silent obscurity passes by. The camera constantly inches in closer on this woman who remains unaware. The sound of the wind hitting the camera's microphone and the faint noise of children laughing is all we hear for this period of time. The viewer feels awkward and intrusive, as if they themselves were staring longingly at this woman.
This woman... There is much to say about her. Indeed, entire works have been dedicated simply on these moments of her sitting on a bench. Not to get bogged down in meanings or petty details, a brief overview will suffice.
She is elegant. Her hair is pulled back into a loose and youthful ponytail. Her high cheekbones and warm eyes are alluring, easy to look at. Laugh lines become more and more clear the closer we zoom in. Her hands start off folded on her lap before she moves them. She wears a fitting corduroy jacket over top of a plaid sweater and a long, dark green skirt, which covers the majority of her legs, tucked slightly underneath the bench; a sliver of her black walking shoes can be seen as well.
Despite the fact that the weather is a grey day in autumn, which gives the picture a dull, perhaps more realistic hue, she is radiant and gives off a warm glow.
From the left a man walks by right in front of the screen. It is from this moment onward that the film gets obscure to say the least. The only distinguishable thing one notices about the man is his hand. He is missing two fingers. The rest of what can be seen is that he was wearing a black trench coat. For approximately two or three frames of the film the entire screen is blocked off by his figure and the hand is center screen.
He walks swiftly by the camera, taking less than a second to pass by and out of sight. What's left behind is an empty bench.
The camera darts to the left and then to the right, all the while zooming out trying to find where she went to. Far off down the right side she can be seen walking slowly away from the camera. After fully zooming out it is revealed that she has managed to get a good 300 metres away from the bench. All that distance in less than ten seconds from when she first disappeared from view.
If that is not remarkable on its own then surely the fact that the there is no man dressed in a black trench coat to be seen anywhere, is. The camera looks around for the man to no avail.
A quick, nauseating zoom later and we are following the woman strolling peacefully down the path. She rounds a curve and goes out of sight.
Remarkably the cameraman did not utter a single word during the events that took place. It is not until around half a minute of watching the corner where she was last seen does the cameraman let out a deep breath.
The view becomes shaky as it becomes evident that the cameraman has lowered the camera from his eyes down to his waist. The audio reveals that he is fishing in his bag for something when suddenly the camera drops to the ground and a brief, sharp cough is let out.
The most peculiar thing is that the camera remains on the ground. Ordinarily it would be expected that he would curse at himself for being so clumsy and then bend over to retrieve it. We are left with the view of a few blades of grass, a blurry pathway that goes off immeasurably due to the focus, and a yearning to know what happened to our pilot. The camera landed in the same direction of where the woman was last seen.
The screen briefly turns black before coming back on again, which suggests that an amount of time has passed or that there was a glitch in the tape. Shortly after this a dark figure can be seen in the distance walking slowly towards where the camera lay along the path.
Slowly and surely it can be seen that the figure is that of the woman, who remains unfocused, but still quite easy to identify.
She gets to within twenty feet of the camera when voices can be heard approaching from off screen. Two teenage boys spot the camera and pick it up. Their talk is loud and breaks the previous eerie silence. Their arrival calms the senses slightly. While we know they are youthful and could potentially just be setting us up for another creepy anomaly, they are also normal and human.
One of the boys points the camera at himself and makes a funny face. He has long dark hair and a golden complexion. The boys start walking with their new found camera down the pathway. The one holding the camera is doing so with one hand and is walking normally; the camera is pointing behind them, away from their walking direction, and is swaying quite a bit. The other friend is never caught on film.
As the camera sways, brief shots of the pathway can be seen, revealing no woman in sight.
The scene ends with a slow fade to black as the camera continues swaying until the very end, which makes the dark screen itself sway to a person watching too intently.
The professional feel to the editing suggests that it was not these boys who published this film.
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User Reviews
Submitted by Harbinger (user info) at 2007-09-20 12:06:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2007-09-20 12:05:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by The_Yellow_Dart (user info) at 2006-09-26 17:34:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by rillins (user info) at 2006-09-26 17:24:48 (#)
Ranking: 0
___
Fuck you.
Submitted by rillins (user info) at 2006-09-26 17:24:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Interesting for sure, couldn't help thinking when we watched the woman that she'd be all "HEAD ON, APPLY DIRECTLY TO FOREHEAD! HEAD ON, APPLY DIRECTLY TO FOREHEAD! HEAD ON, APPLY DIRECTLY TO FOREHEAD!"
Submitted by morontian (user info) at 2006-09-26 11:07:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Interesting.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-09-26 00:08:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
More please.
Submitted by skrapmetal (user info) at 2006-09-25 23:28:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Reminded me a little of Blair Witch, for what that's worth.
Submitted by The_Yellow_Dart (user info) at 2006-09-25 21:35:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
No one should brave the underworld alone.
Submitted by Maltese (user info) at 2006-09-25 20:55:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
0.5
Submitted by Maltese (user info) at 2006-09-25 20:54:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Odd.
Submitted by The_Yellow_Dart (user info) at 2006-09-25 20:48:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
More to come, if anyone actually reads this, of course.
Review: 1969. Summer, I imagine.