Will Time Tell? (2006)

Directed by: Sue Healey | 12 minutes | short film | Actors: Shona Erskine, Ryuichi Fujimura, Makiko Izu, Mina Kawai, Yuka Kobayashi, Norikazu Maeda

“Will Time Tell?” is a beautiful, but above all funny film made by the Australian Sue Healey. It is about a young woman who travels in a country unknown to her. The young woman in the short film – ‘Will Time Tell?’ takes about 12.5 minutes – has trouble keeping track of time, a known fact when travelling. Days seem to be shorter at the destination and when you travel from A to B, the journey always takes longer because boredom sets in. This is roughly the theme of this Australian/Japanese production.

The New Zealand-born choreographer uses clever tricks to visualize this. For example, we see the main character Shona Erskine, a talented dancer who can be seen as Sue Healey’s muse, standing still, while the world around her passes at an extremely accelerated pace. Or we see her dancing frantically, while her surroundings remain calm.

Sue Healey has managed to bring a lot of humor into the film. The contrast of Shona’s red jacket and short dress alone with the clothing of the Japanese group (consisting of four professional Butoh-trained dancers) in which she is part is comical. The scene where the group is fishing is also very amusing. Funny thing is that Shona seems to be the only one aware of the camera, repeatedly looking at her audience with a mischievous smile, which she does not know. Ben Walsh’s music matches the images very well.

The video was shot in two weeks on HD video and Video 8 in Tokyo and Yokohama. “Will Time Tell?” is part of a series of films, entitled ‘In Time’, which Sue Healey shot with the theme of time. This series follows the series ‘Niche’, which deals with the theme of space. It is to be hoped that this talented Ozzie has not yet been filmed.