In John Timmon’s short film the search for meaning (part 1), a man initiates conflict in the narrative by responding to a woman’s expression of boredom. She claims that she wants to do “something new and exciting.” He responds by saying “like driving around naked.” This is a film about revealing character.
Conflict in the narrative is motivated not by the woman’s boredom but by the man’s joke (as we know jokes are the seed of many a drama). He’s surprised that the woman leaps to and agrees with his outlandish choice. We have to assume that the man is taken back by the woman’s agreement, that she would suddenly begin stripping, that she’s now seated in the truck’s cab naked (and always will be) and exposed to the rain or to the sun and to the neighbors, like Henry, who has dashed through the rain or the sun to check his mail and observes the woman’s white body entering the truck, catching how her body had glowed in the sun or shed the rain, although the rain in the film may be an indication of a “play with time” or a “play with emotion,” such as vulnerability or an inner dramatization of the woman’s state of being, or a “play with season,” such as spring.
In addition, we must assume that the man thought that driving naked was something unusual enough to provoke a sense of adventure or break an unusually lengthy period of equilibrium in the woman’s life which has caused her to feel boredom. We also must assume that he had thought that the woman would shed the suggestion like the rain. Perhaps the audience will be left thinking: the man has learned something about this women.
States of being are significant in dramatic forms. This is significant to the woman, who’s state of being at the beginning of the film is “boredom.” The man’s question is a catalyst, an apocalyptic provocation. She accepts the challenge of the question and the man is, therefore, moved into the state of “fear” from that of being safely contained. But what does he fear?
Does he fear being caught; does he fear being exposed; does he fear some strange law prohibiting public nakedness and thus public humiliation? Does he fear what the woman will or has become? Does he fear that he will be left behind, not physically on the street but left in some unknown or perilous condition or “state behind,” as two people in a relationship, no matter the nature of that relationship, are always trying to “keep up” with one another, to enjoy synergy, to stay abreast psychically? Does he fear that the woman will consider him a coward, which is a variation on the previous fear, if he doesn’t join her in the escapade he himself sowed, which now weighs on him like a heavy stone? Does he wish he’d kept his mouth shut; that he might have offered a more banal suggestion, such as rock climbing?
The prior list of fears are conditioned on the identity of the characters in the film, however. The list of fears would change if the woman in the film was revealed as the man’s mother or, better, grandmother or elderly aunt. The intermittent or liminal state of being between is of course one of shock, a period in narrative where action is suspended and characters are provided time to collect themselves and begin to make sense of their new world. (We might say that the liminal state is conveyed by the voice simulation or filter.) As this is true, we must assume that the naked woman is not the man’s mother or an elderly aunt as the liminal state might have come with a remonstration, such as “What the hell are you doing, Mom?” or “Aunt Jane, put on your pants?” not a reminder of the original intention.
Withall, we’re left with a naked woman in the truck, drops of rain on the window and rain on a table, and Henry wondering what will happen next across the street (he will be waiting forever, unfortunately). Most importantly, we are left with a choice: remain clothed or strip and drive. What would you do? How you respond will reveal your character.
