Mark Battle Archives

The Convict, written and directed by Mark Battle (Here Lies Joe, The Janitor), is a bleak yet focussed bit of character study. Utilizing a minimum of dialogue the film follows David Eller (Dean Tempe) the convict of the title.

The film begins with Cameron smashing a bedroom window to bits with a shovel. He is dressed in an orange jumpsuit and has the remains of handcuffs on his wrists. Eller has been injured, he has blood on the front of his prison uniform. He grabs new clothes and digs a bullet out of his abdomen.

For one heart stopping moment a young boy comes into the bathroom where David treats his wound. Afterward he steals a car and heads out to be with his wife. Along the way this determined convict meets a store clerk, a driver who gives him a lift and his mother-in-law.

The Convict is a bleak film. David is focussed on being with his ill wife. The vehicle runs out of petrol and David is forced to hitch a ride. Buddy (Travis Mitchell) gives Eller a lift and then pulls a gun on him. The men struggle and David survives.

Eller is a character who has filled all the required boxes to get parole. Unfortunately at his hearing the chair (Michael Anthony Coppola) is not sympathetic. He tells David that he hears no remorse. He then bluntly says that the convict needs to do his time. Eller mentions that his wife is very ill and that he really wants to be with her.

Clearly David is so intent on seeing his sickly wife that he escapes after his parole is denied. The film is shot with a bleak lack of color. All the tones are pale and muted, similar to the appearance of the convict as he fights off the cold and going into shock.

The inference is that David committed a horrific crime. Eller’s taking every class available plus the chair’s reaction to his bid for parole leads one to believe that whatever David did, it was heinous.

Battle uses the bleakness of the winter setting and the lack of colour to allow us to focus on Eller’s struggle to be with his wife. The lack of dialogue shows that David has never been a socially adept creature. This also shows why the convict took many of his classes, one of which was Anger Management.

When David does speak, his sentences are succinct and very clear. For instance at the doorway where he encounters Mary (Suzanne Bryan). She goes to close the door and lifting his gun, Eller says simply, “I’m coming in.”

Battle’s message is clear, David Eller is a desperate man who will kill to get to his wife. He is so focussed on his target that conversation is not essential. The Convict also seems to say that regardless of our attempts at redemption and change, those in charge will always expect more.

Dean Tempe, who played a much different character in “Here Lies Joe,” convinces as David Eller. His performance is full of a truth that few actors can achieve in a full length film. Travis Mitchell also gives noteworthy turn as “Buddy.”

Mark Battle has given us another splendid offering. The man is a veritable filmmaking machine, a’la Robert Rodriguez , where he does everything bar the makeup and the music.

The Convict is a 5 star effort. It’s bleakly focussed protagonist is a man we root for, regardless of his past, and that, in itself, is a triumph.

THE CONVICT Teaser Trailer from Sweven Films on Vimeo.

Dean Temple as Joe Barnes

Directed, shot, edited and co-written by Mark Battle (with Pamela Conway) and produced by Sweven Films; Here Lies Joe is a short look at depression, suicidal tendencies and two people who connect as they each compulsively seek death. Dean Temple is Joe Barnes and Andi Morrow is “Z” two disparate souls who meet at a suicide addict meeting, chaired by Bill (Timothy J. Cox). Bill attempts to have the small group talk about their feelings.

At the start of the film, we see Joe taping his passenger window around a plastic hosepipe that he attaches to the exhaust of his car. After securing both ends of the hose, Joe starts his engine and the film shifts to the meeting.

In the group, the somewhat timid “chair” Bill prompts the members to talk. Carol (Mary Hronicek), who talks about her suicidal fish, is a flake who becomes aggressive when the younger Z comes in. The late arrival to the meeting zeroes in on Joe whom she calls “new guy.”

When the meeting ends, she coerces Joe into giving her a ride home and the two spend an afternoon together.

Director Mark Battle gives us a look at some intensely unhappy people who are dealing with their feelings as best they can. Z is flip and dismissive of other people’s pain. Joe cannot communicate his thoughts at all and yet, the younger woman and the older man, who is “in transition,” manage to find common ground.

The film is quiet. Here Lies Joe is a contemplative look at these two characters who would not have met except for the suicide prevention organization session. A program that is, as Bill obliquely points out, not too successful.

Each character, Z and Joe, never specifically state why they are drawn to thoughts of suicide, although with Barnes it appears to be a reversal of fortune. Z just seems to be absorbed by death although later more of her inner thought process is revealed.

The humor in Here Lies Joe is low key but all the more effective because of it. There is a scene in a cemetery where Barnes is lying in front of a gravestone while Z sits in a tree. Battle gives us a visual gag that is simple and amusingly apt.

Temple gives an excellent low key performance as the man whose life has overwhelmed him. Morrow is funny, quirky and able to show that all her affectations hide a deep pain. The couple connect and by the end of the film, there is a splendid twist that will make the viewer smile.

Morrow is, at turns, impish and adorable with her slanted look at life and her flirtatious approach to Joe. She and Temple have a odd chemistry that works. His character’s reluctant acceptance of the younger woman, and Z’s interest in him, does not stop either from their pursuit of death.

Timothy J. Cox, as the awkward “chair” at the beginning shows, perhaps, what all these people have in common; an inability to really connect with others.

The cinematography is just as low key as the performances. With each scene, apart from the one at the meeting, has a sort of darkness to it. While the picture is clear and crisp there is the feel of a blurring of the light. It suits the storyline brilliantly.

Here Lies Joe deals with a somber subject with gentle humour and a sweetness that is touching. A 5 star short film so effective that after it ends one wants to immediately watch it again.

Tag: Mark Battle

The Convict (2014): Painful Bleakness (Review)

Like this:

Here Lies Joe (2016): A Review

Like this:

Please share.

Like this:

Please share.

Like this: