Coming Home

The lives of two men are bound by the contents of a mysterious Super 8MM film roll. After many years apart, they meet in the depths of winter and drive across a barren, snow swept landscape to confront their past.

Coming Home is Eric Falardeau's latest short film; shot on Super 8MM film and clocking in at 19 minutes. In contrast to Eric's previous work, the very impressive Purgatory, which was set in an opressive, dark, claustrophobic space, Coming Home takes you on journey into a desolate, bleached panorama. As with Purgatory, the theme of this story is emptiness, but this time focus is on unbearable loss and the desperate vacuum left after vengeance is fulfilled.

Ostensibly a very simple story, Eric Falardeau has once again managed to portray some of mankind's darkest anxieties with minimal props and hardly any words. The foreboding atmosphere in Coming Home is quite uncomfortable to experience, and the ending in particular is extremely harrowing, paying homage to Lady Macbeth's iconic bloodied hands scene. Most of the savagery is off camera and this adds to the horror, the voyeurism is concentrated on the character's suffering rather than the acts violence.

The cast perform their subdued roles with class, I should imagine the actors have considerable experience behind them to pull off such demanding roles... demanding in that they have to do little but portray a lot. The cinematography is restrained with some superb composition and the constant howling wind and occasional subtle music add to the bleak, gelid mood.

Coming Home is a minimalist nightmare, a disturbing glimpse of suffering, guilt and torment set in a frozen hell. Superb. S.J.T.

Coming Home. 2007

Directed by Eric Falardeau.