BAT EYES
2012 · 11m · Australia
Directed by Damien Power
Genres: coming-of-age, drama, thriller
Tones: contemplative, dark, tense
A 16-year-old boy cruelly mocks a classmate, and when he seeks her out years later to apologize, she has other plans for him — a coming-of-age drama adapted from Jessica Bellamy's theatrical monologue, produced by Australian Theatre for Young People.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Power makes the gutsy choice to deny us the protagonist's perspective in the final act — by the time the girl has the power, the film refuses the revenge-fantasy payoff, and that structural refusal is what gives BAT EYES its real sting.
Theatrical monologue adapted, Yeats invoked, ShortOfTheWeek anointed — and yet I'm interested. A confessional cruelty story that comes back to haunt the perpetrator, played close, performed by someone who understood the monologue origin. Could actually land.
Damien Power adapts Jessica Bellamy's first-person theatrical monologue without losing its confessional interiority — camera in close to replicate solo-performance intimacy. Smart formal solution to the adaptation problem.