The Incident
The Incident is an incredible breathtaking short with such emotional baggage, beautiful cinematography and fascinating acting. I was left stewing the traumatic details of this film well after is ended, and, it is safe to say, will think about it more tomorrow as the day goes on. I found myself thinking throughout the entire film what I would do if that situation occurred to me and I have no idea. What would anybody do? The rational human being says “i would call 911”, but you never know what you would do in such an emotional, heart-wrenching situation.
However, as I watched Michal cross the bridge in the last brief moments of the short, I had this grand realization that none of this may have happened. Yes, on the surface the events literally occurring still provide the viewer with emotional tension and metaphorical ideas, but if the man was a figment of Michal’s imagination, the viewer has a glimpse into the deep psyche of Michal and his issues of living in a “grown-up” world.
From the beginning we could tell that Michal was at a standstill. He was always happy when he was with his woman, but she was moving on, getting a job, and living her own life. His lack of knowledge about his future career made him entirely anxious and defeated. So as his wife/girlfriend goes to her real life job, Michal is left to ponder why is at the house, why he is not working and why he is not receiving these stellar opportunities. I found a grand significance in the juxtaposition of the golden, sparkliness of the park in fall and Michal’s grim appearance, dark outfit and attitude. He was literally surrounded by this golden wonderland, but internally, he was stewing in his bad mood. And as he sits on the seat, his conscience, the grumpy bike man, comes along and verbally attacks Michal, bringing attention to his moody blues.
Michal tries to avoid his conscience by shoving it away and it causes more damage than he intended. He now had to look at his life and figure out the way in which to hide his fear and morbid attitude.
He “drags” it into the woods and hopes this is an adequate place for him to avoid rational thinking and expressing his beliefs to everybody around him. It isn’t adequate. I do notice, however, that whenever he is with his girlfriend, he feels at home and puts on this show to convince her that he is okay. Deep down, the “dead body ” (his conscience) is weighing him down, so he revisits his feelings. He doesn’t like them, he covers them up more. He goes back, he searches for the reason why he should come to terms with his sadness and why he is scared. Then, he finds the image of the man’s wife and is reminded profoundly of his own love interest. She is a reason to revisit his conscience.
In the end, when he finally cracks and his fear about life comes through, he gets over the fact that he needs to revisit his conscience because he did what his conscience had been nagging him to do the whole time.
This is just an idea. there are some flaws in it, but I jut felt this deep urge that it could be a possibility for the film.
That being said, both sides of the story are justifiable and incredible nonetheless. I really enjoyed the details of the man watching cartoons and the laughing cellphone ring and crying baby. The man watches the cartoons to almost regain some of his innocence. He wanted to forget the pain of the dead man or the weight of his grown up conscience, so he watched cartoons. The laugh was also very significant to me because he turns it off and almost seconds later a baby starts crying in the background. He pushes the innocent jovial laugh aside and a sobbing, upset noise enters.
I really liked everything about this film. It is remarkable in every way.
