‘Constancia’ is a Spanish word for “constancy”, meaning the steadfastness of mind under duress. A film by Francisco A. Gacuya Jr., he describes the story about a lady who commute and walk to search a person in her dream. Though that dream is more of a nightmare after watching this short film.
This film is super short, under 3 minutes, with scenes of a random male suspiciously wandering the city streets with a narrative saying that the boy suffers from schizophrenia and displaced hostility. We would briefly see a few scenes of a man walking in an odd suspicious behaviour around the city streets. The other scenes in the film are about a woman who is also walking down the streets and supposedly looking to meet the man for the first time.
The narration is used to complement the scenes of both wandering the streets. Without the narrative, it would just come off as random city scenes of people walking. The backstory seems to have a dark undertone regarding the male’s mental state and the danger the woman would encounter. It seems implied that the woman has not met the man in person, which means they may have developed an online or telephone relationship, and they are finally going to meet for the first time.
Negative memories could possibly be triggered by those have been assaulted in public may experience these similar feelings of walking on the streets alone, encountering someone who could potentially be a threat to them and become traumatic. Without having to show any violent scenes that was set up by the narrative, the cinematography was set up in a way that makes it look like an uncomfortable situation to watch as a viewer of this film. The feelings of uncertainty and safety are combined to make it seem like an ordinary day turned upside down by the end of the night. It is not recommended for anyone who was a victim of circumstance to watch this short film as it only contributes as a reminder that there are some bad people out there.
The woman walking around is casually walking around like any other normal day, though the camera aimed at the scenes of her walking are shot in a way that seems like someone has been hiding behind a wall while slowly stalking her movements throughout the day. It could be from the perspective of the schizophrenic male that is following her around.
Sound design on the film uses heavy church bells and loud street noise to emphasize the impending danger the woman is falling into. The music gets heavier towards the suspense to the final parts of the scene where leads to something the narrator was implying violence would ensue upon the encounter.
There’s not much in the way of showing what was really happening from the male’s side, or how he became violent as the narrator suggests. The camera work mainly focuses on the woman’s movement and reactions. Many of the shots uses plenty of blur effects, indicating the uncertainty of the man’s behavior. The night scenes are shot as is without much lighting to emphasize the noise levels in the picture, almost like an amateur camera catching up to a horror scene.
Overall, the short film appears to be more of an experimental short, bringing out the senses of traumas triggered by someone who already had his own traumas to deal with. There could have been a greater explanation as to how the woman knows this man, or how they met, to get a better idea behind the reason why she decided to meet the man in person from her dreams. But like mentioned earlier, maybe this really is a trailer or some teaser to set up for something bigger to come along for this story. Or maybe this was a good excuse to try out some camera work to shoot various scenes and use the narrative to piece the footage together for a short film.
Either way, it is not a long film to watch, but it could lead to a few replays to really try and understand at a deeper level behind the intentions of this film. Maybe down the road, Francisco could explain further about this film’s backstory.