Echo

'Echo' (2011) directed by Lewis Arnold

A young girl receives a phone call delivering some tragic news but her unexpected reaction reveals there is more to this call than first appears.

Echo is a short film directed by Lewis Arnold, around 17 minutes in length, that follows a teenage girl, Caroline, over a short period of time with a 3-part structure based around 3 different phone calls. This is a real-life (minor) crime drama, dealing with grief of losing her father in a road accident by committing street fraud. The colour palette shows the social realism of the narrative with no overly saturated colours and a bleakly realistic street scene. There is also only diegetic sound in most parts with no distracting music. This film represents the difficulty of being a troubled teenage girl and even more so when dealing with grief and isolation.


At the beginning of the film there is an opening long shot and long take of a busy crowd on a street, making the protagonist hard to spot, but gradually becomes clearer as she walks towards the camera, seeing her objectively. This first phone call is completely objective, contrasting with the last phone call when the audience is aware of her stunt, at which point we become immersed and subjective, put into Caroline's shoes, shown with close up handheld camera shots.


The mise-en-scene in this film is very subtle. One particular stand out moment in the scene in the garage, when Caroline's younger brother is trying to get his bike out but it's tangled up in the other bikes. On that side of the garage there are three bikes, assumingly Caroline's, her brother's and her mum's. On the far side of the garage, shown with a long shot, there is one lone bike (most likely her dad's) which represents the isolation of the family.
The editing is also hardly noticeable, adding to the social realism, however towards the end of the film, the fast editing and jump cuts particularly show her panic in the last phone call.


I enjoyed this film as it was slightly longer than the others, at 17 minutes, which gives the viewer more time to understand the characters, rather than a simple narrative. Although short films do typically rely on stereotypes due to the lack of time to have a complete character development arc.