WIND CHIMES

WIND CHIMES, written and directed by Orr Schulman, is a film about fear. There are no monsters, no gunplay, there isn't even any violence except off-camera in a flashback. And still fear grips the protagonist's heart in a cold grip, and the audience's as well.

 

Leora Rivlin acts magnificently as the distraught mother Orit, sucking nervously at one cigarette after another (or discreetly biting her nails when there are no cigarettes around), as she has to listen to her hysterical daughter's phone calls. Orit's reluctance to answer the phone should have been a first indication, and soon we understand why: Her daughter Lea has the uncanny ability to go from paranoia to rage to self-pity within a few sentences. Orit tries not let herself get emotionally blackmailed by her obviously mentally ill daughter, but “bring me a falafel or I'll jump out of the window“ is pretty straightforward.

 

The fact that almost the same thing happened last week doesn't particularly help, and Lea's father is even more reluctant to drive over to the daughter's flat, which is unfortunately pretty high up with a big window front. But it is Orit calling the shots here, she being the one who has suffered the most, as is explained in a disturbing flashback that explains both the burn marks Orit has on her back when we see her coming out of the shower and her emotional susceptibility to threats of suicide – she's been there before. So she makes her husband drive her over there, she even buys a falafel on their way, but when they reach the house, she decides not to give in this time – after checking the back yard under the daughter's window for corpses. Orit pulls herself together and throws the falafel away – it's a tough decision and it might make things worse in the short term, but in the long run it's probably best. But still, it's no solution, because there is no solution, and the film makes this painfully clear to us.

 

Writer-director Schulman fills this haunting tale with disturbing images and harrowing bursts of sudden violence that puts the audience under the same kind of emotional strain as the protagonist. Which is quite a feat for an 18-minute-shortfilm that is played out mainly in a mundane living room without employing any flashy editing or effects. Schulman's graduation film needs nothing more than three splendid actors (the daughter, though never visible, is nonetheless present as an unnervingly high-pitched telephone voice), a haunting soundtrack and some rather solemn and sober camera work to tell his story. We will never find out what actually happened this time, we don't even know if the daughter might have indeed made good on her promise and killed herself, but the whole point was to bring us into the emotional stage her mother is in – a stage where you don't want to answer the phone any more for fear of what might happen next. Which of course is also no solution, because there is no solution.

 

Interview with Orr Schulman

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