Short Films in Focus: Sound and Color (with Director Emma Foley)

(Trigger warning: This film deals with suicide.)

Emma Foley’s “Sound and Colour” presents an awkward and unnerving first fifteen minutes of a woman, Hannah (Alison Oliver), coming home to her family after spending days at a hospital following a failed suicide attempt. No one, including her, knows quite what to say, but everyone (including her parents and two brothers) tries their best to put on a brave and polite face. It is her mother, Gill (Charlotte Bradley), who keeps asking questions and commenting on how pale Hannah looks now that she’s a vegetarian. 

What happened? Was it her break-up with her boyfriend, Johnny (Aidan Moriarty)? Is it her new health regimen that made her chemically imbalanced, and therefore suicidal? Her mom wants a clean answer without actually talking about it. Hannah can see right through everyone, while also keeping her guard up, not letting them in on the how or why of it all. There is a time and place, of course, for such delicate conversations, but it ultimately falls on Hannah to decide when and where that will be. 

Foley’s film takes place entirely in this confined house, lit with such warmth that you immediately sense a family has lived there for decades. The performances, likewise, are naturally familial, making the tragedy that much more potent and the final moments that much more devastating. We don’t know this family very well, but we sense we’re eavesdropping on an evening that will change these people’s lives forever, in ways they cannot yet imagine. 

As Hannah, Oliver masterfully conveys the inner turmoil as she approaches each character who comes near her. She hides as much as she reveals. All the family wants to do is welcome her, eat burgers, and pretend everything is back to square one, but Hannah is nowhere near them. She is also not completely shunning them, either. Oliver makes Hannah a character we want to know more about while also conveying the deepest, darkest depths of her soul, yet keeping enough inside. We come away not completely understanding her (it is a short, after all), but not feeling alienated from her either. Bradley is as strong as her mother, conveying all the heartbreak of any parent who cannot imagine their kids being this deeply troubled or unhappy.

“Sound and Colour” is a deeply emotional piece that also has moments of levity. Foley crafts a tight fifteen minutes that earns the movie’s tearful climax. We walk away from it wanting to hug our loved ones a little tighter, while asking them, “Is everything okay?”

Q&A with writer-director Emma Foley

How did this project come about? 

During lockdown, Tamryn (producer) and I decided to motivate each other to stay creative so we would write new ideas and share with one another each week. I eventually wrote the idea for “Sound & Colour” and she saw something in it. It’s very much personally and culturally inspired by the juxtaposition of Irish repression and humor. I grew up around such joy and laughter, but also a lot of depression, so I tried to condense my experiences into this piece.

I have never watched “Conversations With Friends,” but I feel I should after watching Alison Oliver in this. How did she become involved in this project? 

I would watch everything she’s done; she’s magnificent. I don’t think there’s anything she can’t do, and she will never be put into a box. She has the strongest emotional range and a never-ending depth of understanding for human behavior. I had done a small project with Ali, and I just fell in love with her. When I was casting this, “Conversations” had come out, and she had shot “Saltburn,” so, thinking there was no chance, I wasn’t going to ask her. Then I bumped into her at a festival, her hair was dyed blonde, roots growing out after “Saltburn,” and she was just this character. I sent it to her the next day, and she said yes, so I am very lucky.

Likewise, Charlotte Bradley is a memorable presence in everything she’s been in. How did you get her for the film? 

I had loved Charlotte’s work, but I didn’t know her or have a connection, so we went the old-fashioned way with an email to her agent along with the script, and, miraculously, she said yes. It was very nerve-wracking on the first day of filming with her because we all admired her so much, but she was a complete team player and invested in the character. It was a treat to have someone of her caliber engage with the material as she did.

The film deals with such a sensitive topic, but it ultimately feels satisfying by its conclusion. What were the challenges of writing it? 

Cutting it down to a reasonable length! It was much longer, too long, but I just loved the world and the characters so much that I was always sad about cutting them down. But, as is always the case, it made the film much stronger. The tone was something I was very conscious of and wanted to get right because it is a sensitive topic, but I have had enough experiences in life to know that when bad or difficult things happen, the world doesn’t stop or become completely somber and quiet. It often gets loud and ridiculous. Some of the best laughs I’ve had are at a funeral or in a hospital. It’s how we survive. I wanted to capture that. 

The interior and exterior scenes each have the same warm feeling, which feels at odds with what Hannah is going through. It almost feels like an extra, subconscious hurdle for that character. How did you and your cinematographer, Colm Hogan, go about designing the look of this film? 

It’s so difficult to be in a dark place, feeling completely isolated and alone, yet be surrounded by life and people. Ultimately, as much as her family drives her crazy and can’t face the truth of what’s happened, it is they who save her. It’s they that force her to return to reality and not get completely consumed in her own thoughts. 

I loved developing the look of the film. I had been a big fan of Colm’s work with the director Brendan Canty. Colm shoots very organically and naturalistically, which I think comes from his background in documentaries. I wanted to build on his language and make the audience feel like they’re inside Hannah’s experience. 

I knew I wanted to shoot it as freely as possible, for it to feel unpredictable and non-prescribed. Always following the action and not predicting it. All of the camera work in the house was decided after we blocked with the actors. Colm would then set himself up to cover the scene once he got a sense of the actors’ movements and motivations. I knew I wanted that opening zoom-out shot and to bookend the film with a zoom-in, but beyond that, nothing was planned. 

We spoke more about the rhythm and tone than about mapping out exact shots. A big goal was to make the film feel as natural and fluid as possible. I did a day of improvised rehearsals with the actors to help them get comfortable speaking over one another, interrupting, and being like family, which informed how we moved the camera.

What’s next for you? 

“Sound & Colour” really made me fall in love with writing, so that’s what I spend most of my time doing or learning to do. I have a feature film in development at the moment, which sits in a similar world and tone to this. We’re hoping to make it soon.

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