In Absentia
2000 · 20 MIN · IMDB 7.0 · 825 VOTES · DIR. Timothy Quay, Stephen Quay
Overview
A woman sits alone on a chair at a table in a room on one of the top floors of an asylum. Bright spot lights dot the night, sometimes shining on her window. She sharpens pencils and writes on a page in a copy book. The pencil point often breaks under her fingers' force. She places broken points outside the window on the sill. A satanic figure is somewhere nearby, animated but of straw or clay, not flesh. She finishes her writing, tears the paper from the pad, folds it, places it in an envelope, and slips it through a slot. Is she writing to her husband? "Sweetheart, come." Written by
Dialogue Timeline — 258 lines
A SAMPLE ACROSS THE RUNTIME — EVERY LINE IS SEARCHABLE
00:00:05 Not to our surprise, the BBC asked for a script or an idea
00:00:57 by a woman called EH
00:01:56 I should also say, on top of this
00:02:50 it was something that I think we initially threw down as a gopher.
00:03:39 This was our last 35mm film.
00:04:24 So, ifwe set our brief to animate every five seconds
00:05:05 She wasn't available, and so we substituted one of ourselves
00:05:52 Not only the window, but Emma Hauck's brain.
00:06:35 which we were animating on hands and knees.
00:07:20 And, of course, all of this set against Stockhausen's quite cosmic music
00:08:08 ...we based... powerfully...
00:08:56 It didn't matter whether he was some kind of vague monster, or what.
00:09:52 Here at last our actress came on board.
00:10:45 and we had... with our assistant, Ian Nicholas, we constructed this window.
00:11:41 that it actually was, as it were...
00:12:29 And very important for us was the whole idea of trying to keep her as anonymous as possible
00:13:19 and incorporated into these scenes here.
00:14:08 which we discovered later
00:15:03 which is manifested in the shackles.
00:16:01 ...derision and belittlement of her
00:16:50 This is the way she wrote to her husband.
00:17:32 And again we return to this abstract cosmic landscape, where time rolls on.
00:18:23 a BBC documentary crew had arrived with us
00:18:59 And of course we didn't know that bit.
Cast & Characters
Dialogue Record
Lines indexed258
Dialogue density12.9 lines / min
First line00:00:05
Final line00:18:59
Production Record
DirectorTimothy Quay, Stephen Quay
LanguageEnglish
IMDb votes825