Short Film Critique: Quiet Carriage

As someone who regularly commuted by train to work in Chicago several times a week, this short comedy was my theme song.

The film follows the story of a man on his way home from work. There is a woman who is speaking loudly on the phone, disturbing him. The annoyed man contemplates whether he should say something or not. He does not. The film then goes on to have the man and the woman form a relationship, get married, have a child, and grow old together, all because he never said anything to her on the train. Then, at the very end, it flashes back to the current moment - the both of them on the train. The man then gets up and shouts at her to stop, fearing of what his life may be if he doesn't. The woman then informs him that they are not on the quiet train. The man made a complete fool of himself.

The technical aspects of this film do a fantastic job of creating a baseline. For example, there is unsaturated and dark color grading. This is to show the annoying and unfortunate situation the man has gotten himself in to - a lose, lose situation.The missing color strips the film of any happiness and liveliness that may have accompanied it. My personal favorite part of the film is the established shots that come one after the other. The film is made entirely of static shots which enhances its comedic intentions. The viewer can only imagine what's coming next, but what actually is shown is not what's expected. This causes a "laugh out loud" factor every time the shot changes. Moreover, this moves the film along quickly and with a strong entertainment factor. There isn't a boring moment in the entire film, even though technically, almost nothing changes. Many of the shots also are straight on with the subjects. They are always facing forward. As a viewer, I felt connected to the characters because of this. There was nothing to hide - they were all forward and there. This concept keeps a very linear story line in terms of the camera. As we have learned in class, the camera is by all means a character in and of itself, but not there. With the lack of the "camera character" the story is very easy to follow and is very apparent that nothing is being hidden. The last major technical aspect of this film is the fact that the woman is always talking on her phone no matter the scenario. Interestingly enough, although there are always two characters in the scene, there is only one driving the story. referring back to connecting with the characters because of the camera choices, this also helps the viewer connect with the man. He's the only one interacting with himself/the audience. This practice combined with the well-written dialogue make it a strong comedic film - one many people can relate to.

Overall, this is a very solid film that does a great job with its comedic intentions. The storyline is one that millions of people can relate to, the acting is solid and has a very "real" factor to it, and the technical aspects of the film enhance and create a baseline for the intended purpose. Arguably the most important piece which makes it an overall good short film, is the fact that it never felt like it was dragging or going too fast. The only critique that I can think of is the repetitive dialogue of the female character. I understand the purpose of it, I just personally found it slightly annoying.