Echo

It's a troubling phone-call. An accident, someone off a motorcycle. A scrabble for contact numbers, a spilled bag - a spontaneous outpouring of community, a brief aggregation of concern for someone else's distress. One phonecall prompts others, panicked entreaties to "please pick up". Circular queries about buses and hospitals become a hand in a pocket and generosity from a stranger and a ride in a taxi. One that doesn't go where we expect it to.

As Caroline, Lauren Carse has a difficult task, one that requires us to believe people believing her - a task made easier by the quality of her performance, but also by the technical quality of the film. There's some excellent sound work, especially with the way that phones and ringtones are managed. It's subtle, but well done - as is the film. When it becomes clear that there are questions unanswered - as to whether this is reaction or recreation or rehearsal - Echo becomes something special.

Director Lewis Arnold and writer James Jose Walker have crafted something impressive. The cast are good, Lauren in particular, but Oliver Woollford (who audiences might recognise from Channel 4's Utopia) as her younger brother is also noteworthy. Finn McNicholas provides music, but it's the silences that really give Echo its power. In creating and subverting tone, and repeating that feat, Echo impresses, reverberates.

Watch it here

ECHO from Lewis Arnold on Vimeo.