Rob Munday
Australian filmmaking collective Blue-Tongue Films have treated us to some much-loved short films over the last 10+ years. Crossbow, I Love Sarah Jane, Spider, Bear, not only are these films standalone classics, but they introduced us to some of Australia’s most-exciting filmmaking talent. These aren’t the only Blue-Tongue productions to feature on our site however, sneaking somewhat under the radar was 2017 pick, Florence Has Left The Building. An equally effective, but less showy short than those aforementioned titles, the film introduced the directorial talents of Mirrah Foulkes, an actor known for working for on Top of the Lake, Animal Kingdom and starring as the girlfriend in Nash Edgerton’s Spider. Since featuring her short almost five-years-ago, we’ve taken our eye off Foulkes’ work and in turn, we missed her excellent follow-up short Trespass.
A lean, taut 12-minute short featuring two characters (and a dog) and very little dialogue, Trespass is an impressive exercise in minimalist filmmaking. Centred around a woman (Rachel, played by Maya Stange) taking her dog for a walk in the bush, the stillness of the woods (along with the simple menace of that opening title) instantly put you on edge, this anxiety heightened when the pet returns to its owner with a single shoe in its jaws. Later, on their walk, Rachel runs into a young woman (Laura, played by Sara West) sitting by the side of a path, although she’s clearly upset she insists she’s fine and soon leaves after being called by an off-screen male.
Troubled by this encounter, Rachel returns to this spot on her next walk and as intrigue gets the better of her, she follows Laura’s route and finds a house nearby. As the younger girl exits the building for a quick smoke, the older woman ducks out of sight, until her dog arrives and she can stay hidden no longer. With her pretence shattered, so begins an awkward conversation – if you think you have an idea of where the narrative is heading, you’re probably going to be in for a surprise.
Maya Stange as Rachel, a woman who finds herself in a tense, unsettling situation after meeting a stranger while walking her dog.
Opting for a much more ambiguous direction, Trespass ends up being much way more unsettling than it would have been if it headed down the more expected route. As Foulkes immerses in you this strange situation alongside her protagonist, you can’t help but think ‘what I would I do if placed under the same circumstances?’. With such an open-ended conclusion and a difficult to interpret reaction from Laura, it might be puzzling to try to unravel exactly what is actually happening here, but if anything the dark, enigmatic nature of the narrative just amplifies the fear and dread ruminating throughout the short.
Explaining to former Vimeo curator Ian Durkin, when the film launched online as a Staff Pick Premiere, that she “was interested in the idea of trying to sustain the tension and suspense with as little hand-holding as possible for the audience”, it’s clear this ambiguity was an important aspect of Foulkes’ filmmaking approach in Trespass. A visceral, unforgettable watch, I’m not entirely sure why it took us so long to get this short onto S/W, but I’m glad we’ve finally added it to our collection.
Since completing Trespass, Foulkes went on to direct her debut feature, another Blue-Tongue Films production Judy & Punch, which played Fantasia, Sitges and Sundance and has recently helmed three episodes of the series Eden.