Written, directed, and edited by New York City-based Takuma Matsuda, the one-person short “A Girl in the Elevator” follows the week of a woman living in a Japanese apartment block. During the course of the week we see her entering and exiting the elevator with different expressions on her face. Happiness, sadness, insecurity, boredom, tiredness, and love. The cramped setting inside the small lift leads to a scary encounter with a neighbor that indicates the overall problem of sexual harassment of women in situations like these.
“A Girl in the Elevator” Screened at the All Asian Independent Film Festival
Accompanied with the urban soundscape of horns, alarm signals, and heavy traffic, the crystal clear sound design, also done by Matsuda, illustrastes a realistic atmosphere of the hectic city life taking place outside the image. Inside the shown semi-private space occurs an interesting gap between two worlds acting as a kind of airlock. The realism is further underlined by an appealing lightning concept, which mirrors the vibe of each scene and puts the whole building into the right tone.
The sophisticated orchestration is highlighted by an absence of words and dialogue. “A Girl in the Elevator” bargains more on its moody presentation than on straightforward narration. Facial expression and posture are the tools that the actress named MK Haresign uses to transmit her state of mind to the audience. Therefore, the short comes across like a demo reel for her wide range of acting skills covering various emotions and her ability to present them on screen.
This leads to an undetermined message. Life is colorful and every day holds something new. The Ups and Down of the main character, her dark moments, and her happy ones are compressed in the 10-minute short with little explanation, but the hints that the camera of Naoki Take gives us. Even though one could have wished for a clever climax or a more substantial plot, “A Girl in the Elevator” does its job by presenting a young women's life by leaving out the real action.
