This thesis report is written in support of the short film, Somewhere Between, that serves as my thesis project. The story involves a man who receives a letter from a girlfriend with whom he had inexplicably lost contact. He becomes obsessed with finding her and discovering what had happened to her. As he tries to reconstruct the past, it dawns on him (and the audience) that his memory is unreliable, distorted by the filter of his imagination. This inability to discern between reality and fantasy leads to his downfall. Somewhere Between relies more on image than dialogue to convey its meaning. Conceptually, it questions the value of our perceptions as a conveyor of Truth. This is accomplished by means of a non-linear presentation of narrative events that parallels the protagonist's unreliable reconstruction of the past. Ambiguity plays an important role in the story, which is designed to disorient the viewer to a degree that will invite a more active engagement with the events. In other words, the film is intended to make the viewer a co-creator of meaning. In addition to explaining the construction and conceptual foundations of Somewhere Between, this paper examines other films that employ minimal dialogue, ambiguity, and a non-linear presentation of narrative events to achieve similar or parallel effects.
