By The Time I Fall Asleep

"Is it true what she says?" is the question in the hall, one of many. In another hall, another questioner, "Could [she] turn it down a little?" When doors open noise follows. Why is the towel under the door? Is it noise? Is it smoke? Is it the discussion of the number of milligrams between life and death?

These are small spaces, devotional. Nina paints her mother's nails and everyone is sorry. On the paperwork it says "sudden cardiac arrest". The hands are chipped and metal and the nails shows scabs and damage at every knuckle. In the shadows with the camera spinning it is a piece of modern dance. Not just at those beats per minute, but in the isolating pas de deux. A stage set for two, all proximity and position. "it would be best to love each other" is advice given more easily than taken. No matter who it would be best to love, and how.

Rich in detail, the space shared between the quick and the dying, the sliver of tattoo and the space for cigarettes. Gaps between expectation and reality caught carefully be camera, the clothes in the bath, the disarray on the windowsill, the carefully constructed minutae of not-quite-managing.

Damian Kosowski's film is cold and claustrophobic, tight in shot and focus in the few scenes outdoors and distant and distressed even by the bath. The small cast give affecting performances in something that feels far weightier than its 18-odd minutes of length. It picks its moments carefully, adding heft to every door that shuts. Many dream of filmmaking, but few make works as eye-opening.