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Showing posts from June, 2022

Operator - Caroline Barleet

 Operator (2015), directed by Caroline Barleet, set in an emergency call centre, follows the story of an operator who is dealing with a woman calling about a fire in her home. Gemma (the woman who has called 999) has discovered a fire in her house, with her son, Jaime, trapped upstairs.  We watch as the Operator, Laura, tries to calm to mother in the frantic situation, trying to keep both the mother and the son safe and reassure them that help is on the way. Throughout this, we can hear the call going on, the off-screen roll of the mother scream and panicking. This performance is essential to the effectiveness of the film. Although the short may seem to end flatly, with the fire department arriving and saving the mother and son, the ending makes perfect sense in context to the story. The final drop of tension as the couple are in safety, enhance by the incessant bussing in the background, allows for moment calm and a break from the frantic storyline that has just occurred. A f...