To Be Alone (Short)
In their second collaboration together, writer/director Matthew Mahler and actor Timothy J. Cox deal with another man’s isolation in “To Be Alone.” Both films are about people who build things, but here, William is doing so out of a sense of loss and pain which we won’t understand until later in the film. He doesn’t say a word verbally throughout the film, but we understand what he’s thinking and feeling every step of the way, whether he’s watching TV, eating food, laying on the couch, or holding his Bible in the air during a moment of inspiration after watching a televangelist on TV. There is something he is struggling with as he shuts down from life, as we understand thanks to an unanswered phone call he gets from a friend. He wrestles with grief and his faith in ways that make sense to someone who has become numb from loss. Cox does a very fine job conveying everything we need to understand about William in a short amount of time, and he and Mahler have come up with something compelling and memorable to watch.
To Be Alone from Ross Mahler on Vimeo.
