Break

An old man has been living in a rundown house in the middle of nowhere. Outside the grass is overgrown; inside the cracks and lines of peeling paint on the walls look almost like wrinkled human flesh in the dim light.

Out of nowhere, a car pulls up and a visitor arrives. The old man is startled. He doesn't know when the last time he had company. He tells his guest that he has been here forever, "wherever here is".

Blurting out his feelings to the visitor, the old man says that in the absence of human contact, or any type of distraction, he feels his brain beginning to shut down, a bit like an "atrophy of consciousness".

The small amount of dialogue in this atmospheric short, filmed in and around Edinburgh, is delivered a little unconvincingly, particularly in a sickening scene where the old man shovels food into his mouth.

What it lacks in substance, however, it makes up for in style, with a series of beautifully framed black-and-white stills and some chilling camera work.