point of contact

DOSSIER 2006
The official online publication of the
Syracuse International Film Festival, Vol.3
A Point of Contact Production

A Lineman's Cabin - Romania
Constantin Popescu, Director
30 minutes, fiction

In an old cabin by the tracks, a railroad watchman and his assistant, live in monotonous but tranquil routine. They raise a turkey, watch a schoolteacher as she rides her bicycle in the surrounding wheat fields, and bet on the number of dead people the obituaries section in the newspaper will contain. Their contact with the rest of the world is reduced to that newspaper and the few words they
exchange with the train guard who throws it as the train goes by. One day, during a storm, that routine is interrupted when they find the victim of a car accident lying in the fields and bring him into the cabin. As the stranger sleeps, they tow his car from the nearby beach and clean it up. The next day, for the first time ever, the paper obituaries do not carry any dead. The watchman gets a sudden craving for the turkey, their only prized possession, and later on that night the urge to take the car out for a drive. The following morning, he confesses that he has had an accident while his assistant, who sets his watch by the punctuality of the schoolteacher, notices that she is late for
her bike ride. The stranger wakes up and when the two linesmen refuse to be paid for their help, he gives them the car and leaves for the nearest port to catch the ship delayed by the storm. When the train comes, the watchman angrily refuses to call his assistant's customary bet. As the train rushes by, the guard asks them if they have heard about the accident on the cliff where a car hit the schoolteacher, but we can't hear his answer when the watchman inquires if she is dead. The film ends with a close up of the two workers faces; the watchman struggling not to cry. Featuring strong and nuanced performances from its two main characters, the film builds up its suspense by deliberately withholding information from the audience. We never see what actually happens: the first accident, the killing of the turkey, or how the school teacher was hurt, or perhaps killed. Nor do we know who the stranger is or why he wants to leave so badly. However, carefully selected shots of feathers in an empty coop, the stranger's street clothes, and a smashed headlight provide the missing clues, and, more importantly, a sense of foreboding in the story.

Beautifully shot on the open farmland on the coast of the Black Sea, with long shots tracking the movements of the passing train and the schoolteacher riding away in her bike, the film quickly establishes the isolation and the immobility of the railroad workers stuck in the old cabin. Their only attempt at breaking out of their boring existence has left them facing its intolerable consequence.-