A young girl dreams of a bright open future in Konstantin Pivovar’s My Train Leaves at 7 O’Clock. The writer and director’s short film is very simple. A girl (Alyssa Grace) is in her bedroom preparing herself for a train trip. She dresses in a warm coat and then packs her luggage. Alone in her room, she imagines waiting on the platform for her train to arrive and then looks outside her bedroom window, dreaming of the passing landscape. But we soon learn that with freedom comes danger.
“…imagines waiting on the platform for her train to arrive and then…dreaming of the passing landscape.”
Pivovar stirs up feelings of travel and freedom, all from a small bedroom. With almost no dialogue, actor Alyssa Grace conjures notions of hope and anticipation in just her facial expressions. The filmmaker masterfully tells a story without words and takes full advantage of everything a camera has to offer.
After years of reviewing short films, I’m often reminded that they are a lot like stand-up comedy. A comic spends most of their time setting up a joke to connect an audience with the story, and then they take a sharp turn at the end for the punchline. But, unlike a joke, the twist doesn’t have to be funny in a film. It’s often ironic or, better yet, shocking. In My Train Leaves at 7 O’Clock, the twist takes a very poignant shift and works on a tragic and emotional level.
"…conjures notions of hope and anticipation in just her facial expressions."
