Who are you when you are alone, desperate? A video of detachment--from death, from others, from self, from life.

Who are you when you are alone, desperate? A video of detachment--from death, from others, from self, from life. Two narrative scenes are controlled and understated, giving viewers enough information to be disturbed, and to let their imaginations run wild with each unsettling possibility. Viewers first meet experimentally-shot footage of a bandaged hand, cold and dark, becoming drenched in a dark blue liquid. Immediately afterward comes a short narrative of two characters: one is alive, the other might not be. This narrative, taking place on an evening in a clearing of grassy woods, follows the living person, sporting a US Army jumpsuit and a newly bandaged foot, eying the garments of a lifeless body yards away. The living soldier thinks for a tense moment and then earnestly removes the boots and pants of the other. An interlude of dirtied, bandaged hands "coming clean" connects this first narrative to the next. On an early morning near an overgrown dirt road, we discover a filled, black garbage bag sinking and blowing in the wind. A character dressed similarly to those in the previous scene lights up and smokes, pacing. The garbage bag's mysterious contents are only slightly revealed when the lone character rushes to the bag. Jump-cuts deliver a time-defying, surreal, and desperate search by the character, who pulls out a piece of jewelry from whatever, or whomever, is inside. We are shown hands again, this time with the bandages pulled off with reversed footage. A closing shot of the smoking, pacing character includes an arrogant, unapologetic, direct look from the character to the viewer, making the viewer an involved witness to the madness of these detached and disturbing actions.—Sarah Scheibe