Rob Munday
A powerful, self-contained story that will leave you hungry for more, Emma Elizabeth Tillman’s The Wheel is a gripping short with a focus on transformations. As the short itself transforms from one thing to another, we also witness its three central characters go through a number of changes, tightening our bond with them and wrapping us tighter in their lives. A film that proves once again that story really is key, The Wheel packs so much into its 13-minute duration it feels like you’ve spent a lifetime with its on-screen couple.
After opening with a shot of its lead lady, Rose (powerfully portrayed by Susan Traylor), laying in the sand – the importance of that shot only becoming clear later in the story – The Wheel transports its audience to a wood-panelled motel room, where we find her lover, Clay (Craig Stark), playfully hunting her with a real gun. As their flirtatious game continues, he asks “are you scared?”, to which she replies “my life is flashing before my eyes”. As their frisky romp concludes, his tone becomes a little more serious as he enquires about whether she’s ever had a near-death experience and the look in her eyes instantly tells us she has.
“The minute I got in that car, I knew what was going to happen” – Rose recalling her neath death experience.
As he continues to regale her with his own tale of near fatality, almost boastful about his experience, she patiently waits to tell of her own brush with death. Where his story is told to us first hand – we’re in the motel room with them, apart from when a few brief moments of b-roll steal us away – for hers, we join on her on an isolated roadside, a minute of action before her voiceover solemnly reveals “the minute I got in that car, I knew what was going to happen”.
It’s at this point in proceedings The Wheel makes a tonal shift, changing gears and taking us to a much dark place. Where before we found ourselves wrapped up in the amorous back and forth between the on-screen couple, relaxed in their company, with this change we almost instantly find ourselves on edge, thrust into the passenger seat of an unknown car with a dangerous stranger. It’s a jolt to the system, and an effective one. Despite the early presence of a gun in the story, the chemistry between Rose and Clay is welcoming and inviting, but it’s her story, and how it unravels, which keeps us gripped. We know she escaped the situation, but we’re desperate to find out how.
Though largely set in a motel room, through Rose’s story we’re transported to an isolated road in the middle of nowhere.
Though I’ve categorised The Wheel as a thriller, for the sake of adding it to a collection here on S/W, it’s a film that skips between genres, never settling on one. Tillman obviously had greater aims with her short than to just thrill or enthrall, as she explains in this interview with Tom Taylor on Far Out:
“The Wheel came to me during a very particular time when I was still watching the news. I noticed a particular narrative forming in the media, a reactive, vindictive narrative about human relationships, and in particular the relationships between men and women.”
“I felt that the narrative was very limiting and ultimately was dictating the way a woman, or any person really, should process the difficult experiences in this life. The writing of the film was born out of a desire to write something that was rooted in the specific wisdom of women, or of the feminine in general. Taking that idea to its most extreme conclusion was revealing for me in a variety of unexpected ways.”
A film that impresses with its confident photography and potent performances, it’s a testament to Tillman’s filmmaking that this is a short where storytelling still seems the main focus. In just 13-minutes, we’re welcomed into the lives of Rose and Clay and watch them transform (along with Rose’s would-be killer) as they reveal many different sides to their characters. We want to spend more time with them, as we’ve quickly become attached – but we’re also glad we don’t, as we get to imagine what becomes of them. There are many unanswered questions, about the past and the future, and it’s exciting to imagine answers to all of them.
With Tillman somewhat of a newcomer to the world of filmmaking (she’s directed another short, The History of Caves, and a number of music videos), if The Wheel is an indication of the potential she holds, we should all be excited to see her return to the director’s chair in the near future. In the meantime, if you want to see more of her work behind the camera, you can also check out her photography online.