a face i saw but can't remember

Characters

• Alex
• Yucas - /ˈjuːkəs/
• Katy
• Kellar (voice only)

Part One

• A morning fog on the ocean. Little is visible. In time, this image is superimposed with archival, black and white nature photography. It is played at a speed making it seem more like a pattern than any kind of footage. This should not starkly contrast with the color of the ocean. The two should feel as though they were interwoven with each other.

• Cut to exterior of a convenience store. Alex, a blonde with a classic "white t-shirt" look, is hammering a pack of cigarettes against his palm. In a long take, we watch as he struggles to open the pack, retrieves a cigarette, and then struggles to light it. He fumbles with this for a while, and may have to go inside to buy a lighter. Through this, the camera remains stationary and at a distance. We see him through to finishing his cigarette, and walking out of the shot.

• Black still with text on screen: "good morning.. and good night"

• Someone we haven't seen before, Yucas, sits on a couch in a shabby but not dilapidated house. His look is strikingly nondescript. He wears a lot of dark flannel, and strikes one as a "flannel person." From the way he is positioned, he seems to be staring at the camera or just beyond it. Placing his elbows on his knees, he looks to the right or left, then back to the camera. He may blow into his hands to warm them, or fold his hands around his nose. This lasts for some time before cutting away.

• We follow Alex as he makes his way down the street and up some apartment stairs. Opening the door, he finds Yucas looking derelict and sprawled on the couch. A nearby coffee table is cluttered with beer bottles, cigarette butts, and electronic "tea candle" lights. They make small talk. Neither seems to think this situation is anything out of the ordinary. This apartment is not the house we have seen in the previous sequences.

• A small and verdant but overgrown garden. From the side, we see Yucas and Alex standing against an old brick wall. While they talk, Alex smokes. Yucas plugs one nostril and blows his nose on the sidewalk as they continue to make idle, improvised conversation.

• The interior of a bar while closed. We watch as a worker there prepares it for the day. She wears a death metal or horror movie t-shirt. She stops to check her phone (for some time) until there's a hammering at the window that calls her attention. She talks to someone that we can barely see and cannot hear.

Part Two

• With half of a loaf of bread in hand, Yucas travels near to the ocean. We watch him feed seagulls. They crowd around him, and for a moment he seems more frightened by them than merely compassionate.

• Seated on a wooden floor, Alex and Yucas sit in opposite directions with the back of their heads pressed together. We can see one or both of their hands as they count one, then two, then three. They try to say "This world is not my home" in unison, but it's slightly off. We get the sense they have been practicing this for some time. They're off, but they laugh about it.

• Black still with text on screen: "i lit a stained glass bulb"

• The sun is setting through a nearby window, but Alex is asleep. He rolls back and forth for some time before checking his phone. In a cut, he puts on clothes, and in another, we follow him to the bar we've seen previously in a slow blur. It is now night.

• In a long sequence, we watch Alex drink. On a whim, he tries talking to a patron at the bar that we can't really distinguish. He mentions a story he read about a boat capsizing in the ocean, drowning thousands of cattle. He orders a burger. In another long take, we watch as he eats and finishes it, then drinks more. Buzzed but not drunk, Alex strikes up a conversation with the bartender. He knows that she likes old horror movies, and asks if she'd ever seen one "about a face," or "like a strange face." She doesn't seem to know the movie he's talking about.

• In daytime, Yucas is seated on a couch in the old house, staring at a spoon, apparently trying to bend it with his mind. Bored of this after a while, he presses a button connecting a stained-glass lightbulb to an outlet. Then, he strikes a range of mason jars that are filled with different amounts of water, experimenting with their tone. Now bored even of this, he pulls a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and starts to read it silently.

• A long shot of a drum kit in shadows, next to an open and curtained window. Light is seen in the room, but it isn't doing much to actually light the room. In time a shadowy figure moves into the shot and reclines against a wall. It might be Alex, but we're unsure. Their face stares blankly ahead, though not at the screen, for a long time.

• Black still with text on screen: "this world is not my home."

Part Three

• We see Alex entering a dimly but warmly lit apartment party. He waves to some people, and in a tracking shot, we follow him as he makes his way through greetings and finds Yucas seated on the couch. He sits beside him and starts to talk.

• Alex and Yucas make their way through the party and out of a window or balcony, where others are gathered at a distance. They lean over the rail and talk while sipping beer. In time, a ghostly animal pattern appears. It is so faint as to almost be imperceptible, and is visible only where there is enough dark space to be evident. It depicts footage of the last two thylacine dogs, or footage of two kopi luwak civets. Most of the shot is lit too dimly to see either element very clearly.

• A break from Yucas and Alex, focused on the ambiance of the party. Though the images aren't blurred, our "sense" of them being human is tenuous at best. They are furniture, sleepwalkers, and the audio is alternately muffled -- tenuous threads of dialogue that pick up and fall away.

• Back inside the apartment party, Alex and Yucas are sitting against the wall. One has their hand around the other affectionately, but it's clear that it's platonic. While sipping beer, Alex recounts a story about a movie he saw on television as a child. In the movie, a woman was "haunted by a face." He says that in time she feels that her life is not her own, and that she is living the life of a face. He mentions a scene where she tries to tell someone this, but something bad happens, and they don't understand what she means. Wasted and recounting a childhood memory, the conversation is fragmentary at best. The discourse breaks off, but he starts to cry. Softly at first, then more intensely. Yucas murmurs something in his ear that we cannot hear. Near a point of quiet incoherence, in a kind of drunken but mortal terror, Alex fears the person she was talking to "was really the face." Yucas comforts him, and may kiss his cheek.

• Black still with text on screen: "he knew he was driving down a dead-end street."

Part Four

• From the back, we see someone walking a dog. From his hair or the fabric of his shirt, we can see that it is Yucas. He leads the dog through a dog park. Yucas plays with the dog, and in time sees Alex walking with the bartender we have seen previously, and her dog. Alex introduces the girl as Katy: "Katy, Yucas, Yucas, Katy." This is the first time we've heard Yucas's name spoken out loud. A handheld camera watches the dogs as they interact, and the three make small talk about the park. Alex and Katy say they have to get going. Yucas watches as they walk away. His expression for a few moments is inscrutable. We follow him as he leads the dog out of the park.

• A long take of the ocean, similar to the opening shot.

• The shot opens to Yucas's cluttered coffee table, which we've seen previously. Eventually he comes into the shot with a large bottle of industrial solvent, bleach, or another type of cleaner. He puts it on the table, and resting his chin on his elbow, which is propped on his knee, he looks at it for a long time before beginning to clean. The take is long and grueling.

• Yucas is walking slowly through the old house, holding some paper in his hands. We can see its beginning, and he starts to read it. He brushes past objects we saw in previous scenes: the lightbulb, a curtain, a drum kit. In time a new voice begins to narrate the letter. Beginning "Brother," it hopes that he's well, and goes into depth describing an old house he's bought to "flip" in rural Illinois. Strangely, we get the sense that this is the house Yucas is currently in. The details are boring. Yet in time he describes something he remembers from when they were both kids, about how Yucas used to believe that seagulls made their home under the ocean, and only emerged to catch food. The thing that strikes Yucas's brother the most is the logical inconsistency: if seagulls lived under the ocean, and emerged only to catch food, they would never need to come up from the ocean. He says that he will always remember that. He closes the letter with well wishing and his name, Kellar.

• Yucas working in a restaurant kitchen, frying food. He looks somewhat frazzled, but not completely out of his element. He talks to someone at his side.

• From the side, we see Yucas in bed, wearing a white shirt, and apparently trying to fall asleep. We are looking at Yucas's left side. Suddenly, he sits up, and seems to squint at a spot in another room that is enshrouded in the darkness. We see it, distantly, but there doesn't appear to be anything there. Yucas stares at it for some time before laying back down against his pillow, staring at the ceiling.

• Alex and Yucas are seated side by side on a wood floor of a gallery space. A stained-glass bulb is the only source of light in the room, and is between their feet. They are looking forward to a photo by George Shiras hanging on the wall. They stare at it for a long time. It is not too small to see, but its details are not completely visible. Cutting up close to the photo, we now see it is one depicting two white-tailed deer, shot for National Geographic in 1906. A hum akin to the sound of a heater or radiator is heard, then falls away. It is followed by small but not meaningful sounds of feet scuffling. Cut to black.