Brian is a neurotic voyeur, trapped by fear in a routine existence. Fuelled by milk, each night he logs activities from outside his flat using a home-styled CCTV suite. His neighbour, Marina, likes Brian. She sees beyond his neurosis, to a man she’d like to know better. Brian likes her too, but is rendered dumb during routine doorstep encounters and so can never accept her hopeful invitations to share a cup of tea.

Late on this night, Brian runs out of milk and must break his routine to venture out and get more. We join Brian the morning after, dishevelled, tired and with red stains on his usually pristine shirt. Flashes of what happened show Brian attacking a woman for the last of the milk.... A detective questions him.... No, a reporter.... With this reveal the night’s events are retold: a pregnant woman knocks some pasta sauce off a shelf as her contractions start and she doubles over in pain; she stumbles into Brian and drags him to the floor; in his struggle to get away from her Brian backs up into the sauce and it ends up staining his shirt. Brian, in a brave new world well outside his comfort zone, wants to run but chooses to stay and help the woman deliver her baby.

In turn he gains a new, broader view of himself. The CCTV suite is turned off and he finally manages to stammers his way to accepting one of Marina’s invites for a cup of tea.

MILKMAN
GB 2009. R,B: James Rumsey. K: Gavin Fry. S: Laurence Baxter. P: Rum Jam Films. D: Henry Everett, Delia Remy, Mark Savage, Francesca Manzi, James Clossick.
16'

Links

• Got Milk? – Nils Bothmann about MILK MAN
• Short Films as a Way to Create New and Clear Cineastic Voices – An interview with James Rumsey
• Realism for the Art, Romance for the Market – Nils Bothmann about the British film market