ECHO (2011)

Echo is short story directed by Lewis Arnold which follows a 17-year old girl called Caroline who gets a phone call that her father has been in an accident; later we find out she has had this phone call many times. 

Echo has a non-linear narrative; there is no clear Act 1, Act 2, Act 3, which is the conventional narrative structure. It is ambiguous with what is the actual event (of her dad dying) and what is a recreation. There is a confrontation when her brother appears and she comes out of character and the stranger gets angry, which does follow conventional storytelling, but there is no resolution like there would be in a Hollywood film.

The sound in Echo is mostly diegetic, which adds to the gritty aesthetic of the film, creating a city life feel. At the end there is a high pitch ringing sound, which could symbolise her emotional state and the loss of hearing a person gets during high moments of anxiety. This makes the ending ambiguous as we do not know if this is when she got the first call from the police or if it is another recreation. 

The cinematography and editing are pretty simplistic, with the editing pace speeding up at high-tension moments (when her dad 'dies'). This is a conventional use of editing. There are some long takes where we take in Caroline's facial expressions and how she drops the act. This is done so we are disjointed and it gives us time to try to figure out what is happening.