Isolation
Welcome to nowhere
Billy’s (Shane Ryan) mother died shortly after he was born.
Now it’s his sixteenth birthday and he is still trying to come to terms with her death.
Isolation is a moodily atmospheric film that really does capture Billy’s sense of not belonging as well as his desperation to find something to connect to. And, of course, since what he is seeking to connect to is his – presumably idealised - sense of his dead mother, this is a necessarily downbeat film.
Most of the sets are deserted and – even when there are other people around – Billy is, at best, ignored. There is no dialogue – just a voice over, from Billy and about Billy.
Everything about Billy comes back to Billy and his self reinforcing sense of being alone.
That said it’s far from a bleak film.
The largely black and white cinematography of the film – combined with a very effective score – gives the film a gorgeously dream-like feel.
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The ending manages to be both inevitable and cathartic without being predictable – something that takes a great deal of talent to pull off.
And there is a lot of talent on show here with a strong but straightforward storyline making the most of the short film format.
If you get the chance to see Isolation I strongly suggest you do so. Whether or not you enjoy it will probably depend on how cheerful you were feeling beforehand, but – if nothing else – it’s worth watching just to see what writer/director Shayne Ryan is capable of.
Tuesday 19 Oct 2004 | Paul Pritchard | Drama
I really hate this film. It’s just one volume in Shane Ryan’s library of uninspired, gratuitous films. The plot and technical aspects of the film have more holes than Sonny Corleone’s corpse ie: Billy longs to be with his mother as though he’s known her his whole life, but she died when he was a baby. Most people interprit Billy’s character as depressed because he wants to come to terms with his mother’s death. HE NEVER KNEW HER! Without some kind of strong emotional attatchment Billy shouldn’t be depressed with losing his mother, but with his abnormal and abusive upbringing. The father has much less screen time and involvment as he should, but it doesn’t matter: Cobalt acting is so wooden he could feed the furnace of a large orphanage for the rest of its existance. It would have been more interesting if he had tried to find a mother figure elsewhere. I have no idea why he throws his suitcase into the bushes. The Film Noir style, it appears Ryan was aiming for, is much too white and bright. The visual effects are all very tired and overused throughout the film. Ryan’s acting and narration was terrible. The scene in the pickup truck is so poorly acted it makes me want to retch. Ryan thinks that just by rubbing the bridge of his nose and blinking his eyes makes it look like he just got hit in the face. The narration holds no emotion at all. If anything it sounds like he’s bored to death with what he sees and wants to go to sleep. Just to top it off, he also stole a sound clip from Requiem for a Dream.