Suspense 101 (2012)

Director George Dorobanțu made Suspense 101 (2012) the year after Bucharestless, and it represents a marked change of pace, from hymning the energy and variety of the city to a small-scale short with one actor in a single location.  The scenario for the 17-minute Suspense 101 is minimalist.  A woman, played by Iulia Verdeș, wakes up stretched across a corridor with her back against a door.  Questions immediately arise: how did she get there, has something been done to her?  She is disoriented and cannot move but her clothing doesn’t look disarranged.  There are personal possessions scattered round, and empty bottles that may have contained drugs. 

 As she gradually takes in her surroundings and begins to regain mobility, the silence is broken by strange noises, like a distant roar followed by thumps, and she realises there is something behind the door she is leaning against.  Now possessing some mobility, she is able to move to the other side of the corridor as the noises continue.  A strange light can be seen under the crack at the bottom of the door and the handle is shaken from the other side.  As tension mounts the camera breaks the 180-degree rule by shooting from either side of her to create a sense of instability. 

 The colours are muted, restricted to a muddy palette emphasising the grungy murk, the sort of space that does not encourage one to linger.  There are signs of habitation at one end of the passage and reddish light (suggesting blood) filtering in round a corner at the other, but there is a feeling of isolation, and an assumption no external help is going to be available.  The sense of foreboding is amplified by Lex Dumitru’s subtle sound design which plays with horror conventions and introduces noises that may or may not be significant.

 The poster’s strapline is ‘All you need for a thriller is a girl and a door,’ evoking the old saw that 'all you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun.'  It is fair to say though that a gun holds more promise than a door for excitement.  Raymond Chandler tied the two objects together when he said: ‘When stumped, have a man come through a door with a gun’, and here the suspense is generated by wondering if anything is going to come through the door, and what level of threat it would pose if it did.

 101 in the title suggests a basic introduction, and this is suspense stripped to its elements: a possible threat, dread, isolation, vulnerability, disorientation, uncertainty, voyeurism, a delayed payoff.  There may be danger, it is impossible to be sure, which generates tension in the character and in the viewer.  Both are fearful yet fascinated, the character perhaps unfeasibly fascinated when the natural impulse would more likely be to try to move away from the door towards the lighted end of the passage to escape – but then suspense and naturalism are not natural bedfellows.

 The film ends with the woman, who has hitherto always been seen in profile, looking straight at the camera, determination on her face, while inviting with a gesture a still-unseen opponent to advance.  Has the door now opened, is she facing whatever is coming through it, and is that something us?  Is the reality better or worse than imagination suggests?  Earlier she found she had a scorpion key fob, and at the climax a flick-knife with a scorpion motif on the handle which she handles confidently.  Perhaps it is whatever is on the other side which should be cautious in the encounter.

 The film is available on the Cinepub platform.