Série Descobrindo - The Wait (curta)

Short films have the tough job of shifting the viewer’s perspective in just a few minutes. You throw out an idea through the visuals, and that idea hints at a situation — one that deliberately pushes the audience into forming a narrow concept about the story. In The Wait (2018), a pregnant woman and an old man are waiting at a bus stop downtown. The man tries to make small talk, asking about her pregnancy. The woman, on the other hand, looks uneasy. These early moments lean on classic archetypes: the woman, on the verge of stepping into motherhood; and the old man, the wise figure trying to offer a calmer view of life.

Archetypes are the backbone of many narratives. In tarot, for example, the major arcana (the main cards in the deck) appear as figures that carry moral lessons. When one of these shows up in your reading, it’s time to stop and reflect — to learn something from what it means. The wisdom of the elderly shows up in several of those cards, and all of them point to transformation through experience — often not our own, but someone else’s. There’s always this push and pull: the inner world vs. the outer. Not every conflict is internal, and not every obstacle comes from outside.

In the case of the pregnant woman and the old man, you can see two forces at play: the woman represents movement, someone on the verge of major change, entering a new life cycle. The old man, in contrast, is more passive — he carries a lifetime behind him.

One thing that really sets a screenwriter apart is how they use subtext. Subtext is how they mess with the viewer’s feelings, using subtle tools hidden in the visuals, the dialogue, and in this case — the looks exchanged between characters. There’s a moment in the woman’s eyes that lets us understand her arc. And just the same, the old man moves in the opposite direction — his gaze shifts from gentle to anxious, flipping the meaning he originally held. Through these looks, we see the roles evolve: the woman becomes the wise figure, and the old man ends up facing his own journey. The bus arrives.

Written and directed by Jason McColganStarring Poppy Roe and Mike Burnside