The Pavement (2015) Online

"The pavement; the pavement; the night; those eyes; the glass; the red; the smoke; those lips; her touch; the breeze; the pavement. Wait. Go back."

This line of dialogue opens the film and is delivered with faded in/out clips of everything being spoken about. At the "go back" we do indeed jump back to the start of the dialogue and to the starting point for this short scene to which we are witness. Each successive time we do this, the dialogue and the scene changes a little bit – almost like it is coming more into focus for whomever it is that is narrating it for us. This simple idea is quite effective because, although the noir-delivery and the specifics of the scene are not too different, the constant resetting of the scene is delivered with a very good pace – with the clips and the narration speeding up as the viewer starts to pay more attention, and contributes towards drawing the viewer in. The film also knows when to slow down and when to linger, so that the significance of the line or clip can be allowed to sink in – not just on the viewer but mainly on the narrator himself.

The black and white images cover up the fact that some of the effects are not the absolute best, but generally it looks crisp and clean; personally I would have liked a bit less light in this noir as it is maybe too crisp for my taste, but it still works. For me it does so because of how well paced the rhythm of delivery is – both in terms of the images, the dialogue, but also the knowledge/understanding of both narrator and viewer. It is only 4 minutes long but it uses this time very well, leaving me feeling satisfied thanks to the effectiveness of the story-telling rather than the detail of the story itself.

"The Pavement" is an American English-language live action short film from 2015, so this one is almost 5 years old now, maybe already more than 5 depending on when you read this review. The director is Taylor Engel and he is also one of the writers, surprisingly many writers as this one is not even 4 minutes long. It is a black-and-white movie where we find out step by step with the help of a narrator what happened on a fateful night when one brother catches the other brother with his wife. Tragedy ensues. Well, it wasn't a tragic watch for the audience, but by no means a good one either. I found it rather pretentious and it got quickly annoying to listen to the narrator with the way he talks because really none of the tension from the movie is delivered to the audience no matter how hard they were trying. I generally like black-and-white films, but only if the execution is good. Here it is another example of style over substance. Also the actual film lasts for a few seconds only and it is the same shots delivered again and again with some new audible information that adds something, but does not make it worth seeing. So most of the work here for the makers had to be done in the editing room I suppose. All in all, it is an example of too many cooks spoiling the broth (or brother as I think the director's brother worked on this one as well). This scene could have worked without the all gimmicky approach as part of a full feature movie, but as a film on its own it does not. I was not curious what information to get next or lets say what would happen enxt and even at this brief running time, it dragged too much for my liking. Not a failure, but still a negative recommendation from me. Watch something else instead.