Severn Lang’s short film, Inner Peace, is as powerful as it is simple. Making use of face morphing technology, the film consists entirely of close ups of several actors voicing their own inner monologues.
In the film and music industries, one of the most common flaws is what is called ‘on the nose writing.’ This is when a piece of dialogue or a line from a song goes too directly to the point it’s trying to make, and thus falls flat. On the nose writing doesn’t work for at least a couple of reasons. For one thing, it’s not realistic. People don’t usually state exactly what’s on their minds or blurt out exactly what it is they want. For another thing, it doesn’t leave room for the audience to connect the dots themselves, which is an essential part of great art.
Inner Peace is a very rare example of a film that is absolutely direct in its message, and yet absolutely compelling. This is on the nose writing that goes straight to the heart. We never really know what others are thinking, and this is especially true in film, where we don’t normally have access to a character’s deepest thoughts and ambitions. Even if we hear from a narrator, we’re not usually privy to the inner struggle the way it’s presented here.
The film is divided into two parts. In the first, we see the actors, looking directly at the camera and voicing some of the most negative self-talk you’ve ever heard. This is, truth be told, hard to watch. For many, and I suspect even for the vast majority, this negative self-talk will be too close for comfort. And with the actors looking straight at you, this can hit quite close to home. By rights, this method shouldn’t work. But it does work and it works very well.
There is, however, a second part in which we hear more hopeful self-talk. This self talk is what we all should be saying to ourselves. The film does a great job of presenting a problem and then proposing a solution. Prominent among the positive self talk is what has come to be known as the serenity prayer, heard in Alcoholics Anonymous and other similar meetings: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.” This prayer was in fact originally written by Reinhold Niebuhr for a sermon in the 1930s.
Inner Peace also has the virtue of being both universal and very timely. Negative self-talk has probably always been around, and people have always had to find a way to tame it or keep it under control. But there has probably not been a time in the past several decades when this message is more relevant. In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, people all over the world are more isolated than ever. Our society already has a tendency towards isolation and loneliness and the pandemic has made this tendency much worse. My guess is that there has been a corresponding increase in exactly the kind of hopeless and despairing self-talk we hear in this film. Which means that there is no better time to be reminded of some of the time-tested ways of defeating it. The core message of the positive self-talk in Inner Peace is gratitude.
Beyond the message itself, the acting in Inner Peace is excellent on all counts. One of the characteristics of a great actor is the ability to convey enormous amounts of information without words. And these actors, in addition to the words they say, all convey profound emotions here.
One of the other important takeaways from this film, and especially during the pandemic, is that we never know what’s going on in other person’s head. They may appear beautiful and put together and successful, but you never know if what kind of internal verbal beating they’ve been giving themselves. So the film urges not only that we strive for inner peace ourselves, but that we take it easy on others as well. And in this, Lang has done an admirable job.
By: Darida Rose
© 2021. UniversalCinema Mag.
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