gas_n_go032416

[StevePulaski]

gas_n_go032416 (2016)
Directed by: Aaron Salazar

Rating: ★★★

Aaron Salazar's short film gas_n_go032416 instantly reminds of Adam Rifkin's LOOK, a film that followed the lives of several individuals of all ages through surveillance footage, be it in stores, on sidewalks, or ATM cameras. The film was even adapted into a Showtime series that ran for one season. I called both projects "a work of brilliance" because that's exactly how I saw them; they were uniquely composed as they took the concept of an anthology to another level by following characters through ways that made the audience a voyeur in the purest sense. You learned of individuals' true character in terms of what they did when they thought nobody was looking.

Along comes gas_n_go032416, an eleven-minute short of similar concept, though more realistically done in the way it disregards ordinary dialog and replaces it with a score that sounds like garbled nonsense. The short, selected in Cannes Film Festival's "Short Film Corner," shows a convenience store robbery in Nebraska from the perspective of nine (technically eight) security cameras. A man (Todd Bennett) works up at the front counter while another woman (Michelle Bennett) works in the back taking inventory before two individuals enter with guns and weapons drawn and force the both employees in the backroom.

When the robbery goes awry, it feels as if director Aaron Salazar has handcuffed us, the audience, since we can observe the madness unfolding but cannot do anything to stop it. Salazar also makes it so our eyes must scan the screen in order to pick up the multiple perspectives employed here. It's a wonderful tactic that turns the ordinarily passive viewer into an active, engaged thinker and predictor of what will happen and where to look next.

gas_n_go032416's audio-track, as stated, sounds like the cloying sound your telephone makes for the hearing impaired when the area code or telephone number, as dialed, is not valid. It's so entrancing, almost enthralling, that once the short film concludes, and you're rekindled with silence, you realize the film carried a tense ambiance you may or may not have initially noticed. Such a thing is instrumental to the film, as it heightens the tension in a way that doesn't make it wholly unrealistic nor compromises the visual authenticity or the practical/legal capabilities of surveillance footage (it is illegal for security cameras in many states to record audio).

Salazar's debut short film is a strong work of minimalism that nonetheless asks a lot of the viewer in terms of making them an active participant in what they're watching. Rather than cloaking the material in some greater thematic significance, Salazar's short looks to realistically create a robbery, shooting the surveillance footage shot in real-time and even titling the short after what the footage itself would be pragmatically titled in an ongoing investigation. The beauty lies in the painstaking realism on all fronts and the captivating results it produces.

Starring: Todd Bennett, Michelle Bennett, Tyler Meyer, and Virginia Gormley. Directed by: Aaron Salazar.