Foursite Film Festival 2009

People's behaviors are driven by their memories and obsessions. Their obsessions dictate their actions and their actions reinforce their obsessions in a never-ending cycle. My film is an exploration of people's habitual behaviors as a reflection of their mental status. In my work, three people with no cause to feel unease behave in peculiar ways in order to escape their misgivings. Three stories are shown are shown in sequence and later as a montage. These stories are about ordinary everyday people, one driven by axiety, another compulsion, a third by obsession. They indulge in idle fantasies and habitual behaviors. Their fears cause them to have circular thoughts which leads to habitual behaviors. Their mental status will be symbolically described through camera angles, color, typographical transitions, and visual images, musical tempo and so on. Habits, the result of obsession or compulsion, will be scattered. How the characters relate to each other is revealed at the end of my work. 1. Sleeping Matters Night after night, a woman lies awake in her bed. She is unable to sleep and tosses about. Intrusive persistent thoughts invade her mind. She closes her eyes. The moment she falls asleep, she is awakened by the sound of a drop of water. Water continues to drip from the tap. The clock strikes 3 a.m. She is now fully wide-awake. It has become a daily cycle. She has many sources of anxiety, much of which cannot be resolved. She could not sleep the previous night, because of her fear that the roof may collapse. She has a fantastic thought tonight. 'Where is the end of the universe? What shape is the shape of the universe?' This story is about a woman who anxiously worries. She has thoughts that should not concern her. She has diverted herself from reality by thinking about the universe in order to dispel her misgivings and feelings of unease and sadness. As a result of these thoughts she suffers from insomnia. Thoughts bring about other thoughts. 2. Counting Matters A man with an attractive smile has an odd habit of counting things. Going downstairs, he counts the number of steps unconsciously. Sitting on a chair, he writes notes to himself: 'I will be okay', 'people do not hate me', and 'nobody understands me'. Seeing a clock, he checks whether the second hand is moving sixty times in a minute or not. Even worse, he counts specks on the wallpaper. Numbers surround him. He attaches post-its on the wall. However, he cannot escape from his fears. This story is about compulsion. This person repeatedly counts objects or bites his nails whenever he is nervous. This behavior soothes him and he starts to enjoy this feeling without being aware of it. If somebody were to restrain him from counting, he might lose his head. 3. Rearranging Matters A man rearranges books and cans on a bookcase. He is compelled to arrange the line of books. He sits on a chair and reads a book. He cannot concentrate on reading the book, because there seems to be germs on the cup. He thinks they are sources of infection. He washes imaginary dirt off the cup. He stares at the wall. He washes his hands repeatedly after seeing thousands of spots on the wall. Those spots seem to encroach into his space. The third man has an obsession with cleanliness. He thinks people are liable to infection. For this reason, he must clean his body and his surroundings. The only exception to his ritual of cleaning is when he beats the table with his fingers to kill imaginary bugs. 4. They are ordinary office workers Three people are working at an office. The woman goes to the window and blankly looks up at the sky. A coworker involuntarily fastens papers with clips and then counts the clips. The third man has just finished his work of the day and has started to rearrange papers.