craigdevine88-dkjtq

a short film script by Craig Devine

TANTALUM

CREDITS: BRIGHT RED with BLACK LETTERS and the title:
TANTALUM.

This is accompanied by unsettling music.

TEXT: The Chemical element: Tantalum ( Symbol Ta, atomic
number 73):
“This metal I call tantalum…partly in allusion to its
incapacity, when immersed in acid, to absorb any and be
completely saturated”- Anders Gustaf Ekeberg (Swedish chemist
who discovered Tantalum).

Then quickly cut to action:

Close up of girl lying face down. A cut is on her head.

CUT TO

She is lying in a field. She slowly stirs and eventually gets
to her feet. She walks through the muddy field. She is not
suitably dressed for the conditions. She is shivering ( we
see her close up as she walks- teeth chattering- feet in the
mud). She look at her hands. They are stained red, possibly
even dried in blood. She raises her hand to touch her head,
feels the blood. The girl looks at it, she suddenly panics:
frantically attempting to clean the blood on the grass or
with some leaves. She sees a river or stream. There is a red
scarf snaking in the stream. She washes the blood in the
water. There is a road nearby. She walks to it, before she
gets there a blanket, spotted with blood, lies on a verge.
The road is far from civilization, utterly destitute of human
presence. We see a close up of her face as she walks along
the scenic roadside. The girl walks for quite some time-
looking increasingly cold, isolated and broken. There are
voices clamoring, rushing up, reaching a crescendo, like a
whispering crowd, they repeat over and over, a dark muffled
prayer:

VOICES
To be small among voices. To wear
the red scarf of sin. To speak of
what is nameless or to bring words
back from the dead. To be lost in
cracks of truth and to spasm like
something being born or to hear the
low engine approach and to want, to
wave, to hope for a home.

She screams or shouts:

GIRL
STOP! Why am I here? Who brought me
here?

CUT TO

We see a shot of her isolated in the expanse of the
landscape, steep hills on all sides, no evidence of nearby
habitation. Her voice echoes in the valley below. The “here”
lingers in the air. She walks along again and then a car
comes into shot along the long road.

CUT TO

We see the girl at the side of the road and the car
approaching. She looks around to see the car approaching. She
waves. It slows and finally stops. A man is driving the car.
He lowers the window. The music at the beginning of the
credits is playing on his radio. He switches it off.

MAN
Do you need any help? What are you
doing out here?

GIRL
What are you doing out here? I
think I’m lost.

MAN
Get in. No, wait. Wait.
CUT TO

There’s darkness. The boot of the car opens up and we see the
face of the man looking down. He pulls out a red scarf and a
blanket. He puts the blanket around the girls shoulders and
the scarf around her neck. The girl gets in the car. We see
the blanket on the verge, identical to the one she has just
placed around her shoulders- except for the spotted blood- we
see the car drive off into the distance.

CUT TO

The car comes towards us as it makes its way down the road
and as it goes over the camera the screen goes black. There’s
an instantaneous cut to the inside of the car. We look out
from behind them both. There is silence for a bit. The rhythm
of the window wipers are the only sound, like a metronome.
The man puts the music back on.

GIRL
Strange music.

MAN
Don’t you like it?

GIRL
No. Don’t you like it?

MAN
What happened to you?

GIRL
I don’t know. What happened to you?

MAN
I’ve to give a lecture. How did you
get away out here?

GIRL
How did you get out here? I don’t
know.

MAN
Well what’s your name then- you
must know that?

GIRL
What’s your name? I don’t know that
either.

MAN
You don’t know?

GIRL
What’s with all the questions
anyway?

MAN
Considering I just picked you up in
the middle of nowhere- well I think
maybe I’ve a right to ask a few
questions- don’t you think?

GIRL
Don’t you think. I don’t think
anything.

MAN
What happened to your head.

The girl looks in the car mirror, she touches the cut. Blood
is on her fingers.

MAN (CONT’D)
Maybe it’s the head that’s causing
all this?

GIRL
‘All this?’

MAN

Not knowing who you are is not
good. I mean you not knowing you’re
name.

GIRL
Not knowing you’re name?

TAYLOR
Your head must be like a Chinese
room of paranoid whispers. Softly.

GIRL
Softly?

MAN
My name is Softly. Taylor Softly.

GIRL
Taylor Softly. Nice name. Unusual.

TAYLOR
I’m going to the local University
to give a talk on ‘Sisyphus
cooling’.

GIRL
‘Sisyphus cooling’- sounds clever.

TAYLOR
Clever? I’m lost. We’re all alone
and we’re all lost- in one form or
another. Don’t you think?

GIRL
Don’t you think- what does it mean?

TAYLOR
What’s with all this repeating
everything I say?

GIRL
I say- I need a drink. I need to
eat something.

There is a drink bottle next to Taylor. The girl picks it up
but it is empty. There is some food packaging on the
dashboard. She snatches at it but again they’re empty.

TAYLOR
Want is the most evil torturer of
those who cannot have.

Taylor laughs to himself and then points to the glove
compartment- the girl opens it & a bag of red apples are
inside: she ravenously devours one of them.

TAYLOR (CONT’D)
Haven’t you anything in your
pockets?

GIRL
Anything in my pockets?

TAYLOR
To identify who you are.

GIRL
Who you are- this- what is this?

The girl finds a tape recorder in her pocket. She presses
play and it plays whatever it is that it has recorded. They
both listen, intently. There are voices, arguing. Music
plays, it is the same music played at the beginning of the
film. A few phrases are repeated by a female voice: ‘I’ve
seen this all before’ or ‘Your voice- where have I heard it
before?’ There is a lull, some indeterminate phrases- the
girl stops the tape.

TAYLOR
Sound like us- I thought anyway.
Strange. Did any of that mean
anything?

GIRL
Mean anything?

TAYLOR
Yes: is anything clearer in your
mind?

GIRL
In your mind?

TAYLOR
My mind? Shit. I was meant to turn
down a different road. Do you
believe in punishment?

GIRL
Do you believe in punishment?

There is a long pause here as though Taylor is contemplating
the question.

TAYLOR
You could get something to eat back
at mine. Hot water. Have a warm
shower. Clean that head of yours.
Slip into something comfortable.
New clothes. A bed.

GIRL
A bed.

Taylor puts the music on again, the same as before. The girl
doesn’t look impressed.

TAYLOR
I like to take photographs. Hey
y’know you have a great body.

GIRL
You have a great body.

TAYLOR
You thinks so? We can have a couple
of bottles of wine.

The girl puts the tape recorder back on- there is voices
arguing again.

GIRL
Couple of bottles of wine.

Ahead of them is a car. It is stranded at the side of the
road. There is smoke coming from it. It looks abandoned, as
though it has crashed. As they slowly pass it the girl looks
behind her into the car: the bonnet is up and a red hand,
bloodied, stains the window.

TAYLOR
Nasty business. An ugly, ugly
situation.

GIRL
We need to go back.

TAYLOR
Why? Sometimes the dead have more
to say than the living.

GIRL
Living- your voice-where have I
hear it before?

TAYLOR
Repetition is the nails that
crucifies the soul.

GIRL
Was it you who brought me here- was
it you who made it happen? Did you do that back there?

TAYLOR
Don’t you trust me- what’s with all
the questions?

GIRL
I’ve seen all this before. Stop!

TAYLOR
Maybe questions are only the
answers we have for what is not yet
possible.

GIRL
Let me out! Let me out NOW! NOW!
NOW!

The girl grabs at the wheel, she hits him, she shouts wildly.
The tape recorder is playing at the same time, as though
mirroring the fight going on in the car. The sound from the
recorder is playing slightly ahead of them- we hear the sound
of the crash on the device before it happens. From the front
the car zig-zags. They crash. They both hit their heads.
Taylor isn’t moving, there is blood on his face. He is
pressing against the horn. It emits a continuous siren. The
girl sits back on the seat, she has a cut to her head, she
touches it and places her bloodied hand on the window. The
door of the car is open, she gets out, the red apples have
fallen and rolled onto the road. She looks back, the bonnet
is up on the car with smoke coming out of the engine. She
staggers along the road. The blanket, now spotted red with
blood, falls from her shoulders onto the verge at side of the
road. Eventually the girl makes her way into a field, the red
scarf unravels from her neck and blows into the river. The
girl staggers on hopelessly and then finally collapses face
down again.