Stockholm

He is not only the star but, grace to close ups, tension, gestures, looks and shades, he becomes the subject of film.

And, in many senses, this is the basic virtue of this short film about ambiguous tension, about fake refuges and run by yourself.

A trauma and its deep traces.

The fights.

And the solution.

A film who deserved be perceived as warning, reflection of near realities and seductive for its honest perspective about a taboo subject.

"Alex" (Alex Britt) meets "Ed" (Max Percy) in a London bar where, after a few seconds of flashback, it becomes clear that the former has had a fairly recent traumatic experience that he is determined to recover and progress from. What that was, and with whom is all part of the ambiguity presented to us here from Tom Wright. There are some clues in the rather sparing dialogue but nothing concrete, indeed - it seems that in just ten minutes we are merely being given a rather rudimentary introduction to these two young men and left to fill in - just one too many - blanks ourselves. The production, set in a pub, helps set the scenario of intimacy in a public space quite well, but I found the lack of definitive context in the flashbacks just a little disconcerting and confusing to be effective. Perhaps that was the plan - but it didn't quite deliver for me. It's a curious film to watch, I suspect many of us will get different things from it, but I'd give it a watch - Britt's character has something elusive yet strong about him.

There just wasn't anything in this short to get one's teeth into. There'd been some traumatic event in the past but although this was alluded to, there was no explanation. This made the film totally redundant, the conversation meaningless and the cut-in scenes of sex irrelevant. The collapse after leaving the bar was a mystery. Had the meeting been that disturbing? If so, why did it take place? We were given nothing to work with and too little for our imaginations to soar.

We didn't even know if the film was a reliving of prior events during a therapy session - we got to see them instead of them being recounted. However, the original deep trauma was not addressed at all which left an unsatisfying void.

Not recommended at all.