On Tuesday, the 20th of January, I attended the premiere of Shapes of Days at The French Institute. Directed by Sienna Hammond and written by Zack McGuire, the short film was executive produced by Edinburgh-based production company Memento Pictures and EUTV, the University’s Television station. The premiere, like the film itself, was a testament to the strength of the artistic community at Edinburgh. Student artists displayed works relating to their relationship to the city as part of the exhibition Serendipity in the foyer of the Institute, and the whole, black-tie clad crowd buzzed with excitement and pride in the lead up to two sold-out screenings.
Following a young, sleepless man adrift in Edinburgh, Shapes of Days is an introspective, atmospheric portrait of loneliness and depression. Though its lead character Ryan, played by Hal Hobson, is surrounded by the warmth of his flatmates, he grapples with a sense of helplessness that he struggles to convey, days seeming to drift by monotonously. I was struck by how strong both the performance of Hobson and the direction of Hammond is in conveying the interiority of Ryan, captured in moments of quiet melancholy amidst the action of the every day.
The second half of the short is its most visually striking, weaving between imagination and reality as Ryan wanders the empty streets deep into the night. He fantasises about coming clean to his friends about his state of mind, and finally arrives, for a beautifully shot sequence reminiscent of Barry Jenkin’s Moonlight, at the beach. The turbulence and suffocation of the water as Ryan wanders into the sea, aided by an excellent score by Jake Wheldon and Daphne Inglis-Jones, lend an intensity to the sequence, ambiguous and frantic, that has stayed with me long after its close. Shapes of Days is a quietly moving depiction of the complexity of mental illness, and a remarkable achievement from its team of student filmmakers.
Image provided by Memento Pictures Ltd for The Student.