A man’s day is about to go from bad to worse in this drama from director Mason Rey, who also stars in the film.
Don Gos is a telemarketer who is having a very bad day. All the calls he attempts to make all have been insulting him. His only solace is a fellow Internet user who he’s never met. He feels like he can relate listening to the person. However, his bad day is about to become worse. On his way home, he decides to take a detour into the local tunnel when all of a sudden, it collapses. The collapse forces Don to be unable to leave the car and he is stuck for a long time.
As Don finds himself trapped, he decides to make the most of the situation. Knowing he can’t open the window to prevent the debris entering his car, he seems to be doing okay at first. However, as he spends more time in the car, Don slowly goes insane. That is, until he hears the voice of another survivor, Jim. As Don finds himself talking to Jim, he soon learns the dark truth about his situation and to survive, he must confront everything he’s dealt with and come face to face with his demons.
Films like George Sluizer’s The Vanishing and Rodrigo Cortes’ Buried have a theme, in the case of the former a scene, and the latter, the entire film, where a protagonist is trapped within a confined space. Perhaps influenced by these films, writer/director Mason Rey decides to put himself in a landslide for most of the film. While places like coffins are usually done for this effect, the landslide brings something fresh to the film. Despite the fact that there have been landslides in films, there hasn’t been really one to focus solely on someone in a landslide and how he or she will handle the matter.
Rey himself plays Don as a miserable man who has been nothing short of having a bad day. Dealing with potential customers who berate him on the phone, something all telemarketers face at one point in their lives. While this part of the film takes up the first fifteen minutes, the film clearly focuses on his situation in the landslide. Rey does a great job in playing Don as he deals with the predicament he is in. He goes about drawing figures in his car and even at one point playing tic-tac-toe with himself using some of the small rocks that fell in his car before the impact of the landslide traps him.
When Don begins to have visions of the potential dangers, that is when the film really begins to pick up. Hearing a voice of another survivor, Don begins to not feel alone for the first time. In fact, much like the “character” of Olive in the film’s opening act, the relationship between Don and Jim is quite similar. Jim is willing to listen to Don air his grievances but interestingly enough, we don’t learn much about Jim and it is for a very valid reason, which leads to quite a twist in the story. And if that’s not enough, the final ten minutes of the film prove to be quite a mindbender, making this an overall valiant effort on Rey’s part.
Lamp Light is a fresh look at the protagonist in a confined space. Where there are usually coffins involved, Mason Rey took a different approach and used a landslide, all while giving a great performance of a man whose day goes from bad to worse and deals with the situation he’s in.
WFG RATING: B
Random Media presents a Memetic Light Limited production. Director: Mason Rey. Producer: Mason Rey. Writer: Mason Rey. Cinematography: Mason Rey. Editing: Zap Rowsdower.
Cast: Mason Rey, Kelly Hager, Joel King (voice), Chelsea Christopher (voice)
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