Distress Signals

Anybody who watches documentaries on the subject, or survival films, knows that going hiking alone is a bad idea. The heroine of this film, Caroline (co-writer/co-director Christine Nyland), knows it herself. So why does she do it? That’s a mystery which this film consciously explores, beginning after she has already found herself lying at the bottom of a ridge, her shoulder dislocated.

Caroline is a practical person. She gets her shoulder back into place and rigs up a sling to avoid putting additional strain on it. She uses both her radio and her mobile phone in an attempt to reach help. Knowing that she’ll need water, she keeps moving and successfully locates a stream. When, walking along it, she cuts her foot, she realises that the smashed-off end of a bottle which has injured her could be useful for focusing the sun’s rays and starting a fire. But she misses little things.

How fresh that piece of glass it, still sharp at the edges? Streams don’t leave glass like that for long, and it’s too heavy to have moved much – someone else has been in this area within the past month, so there might be a campsite or road nearby. When she hears a helicopter, she chases after it, waving her arms, but it doesn’t occur to her to use the ample materials she has around her to create something which, if positioned in the obvious prominent place, might catch searchers’ attention. At no point does she make any noticeable effort to look for food.

Often this kind of thing is annoying in a film, but here its oddness – in light of what she does get right – points to something else going on. Whilst she may put in a good amount of effort to look after herself, it’s plain that Caroline also has self destructive urges. During the first half of the film, we are simply watching her cope, all alone, and try to adjust to her environment. It’s all believable enough, but slow, and lacking in the style or intensity really needed to keep the audience hooked. In the second half, the film shifts gears as we realise that she may not be as isolated as she thought – but is there really somebody else there, or is the film’s central confrontation one which she needs to have with herself? Flashbacks, brief and sparing, hint at how long she has really been in trouble, at how her distress signals have been observed but ignored.

There’s a strong central idea here which never pays off as well as it should. This is still a commendable effort from a small team, and an indicator of the talent which they would subsequently display in [41685]Summoners[/film]. Whilst many directors still strive to get noticed by upping the ante on gore, Nyland and Terence Krey get a lot out of just a few injuries, and do so to a purpose. It’s not easy to have a central character carry the other kind of suffering they’re addressing and still keep an audience engaged, but they make a bold effort in that regard, and one which, to some viewers, will mean a good deal.