How it was made

Driving was cut to the song first: every vocal line was timed, and the 50 shots were planned against those timings, so each lyric lands on the picture it describes. The song is the film’s only soundtrack.

The driver and the angel each have a reference portrait, so the same faces appear in every shot, through two loops of the same night: once with a young angel who leads him into the river, and again with an older, broken one who climbs into the car beside him.

Moments that had to flow, like the light on the road becoming a figure and the pair sinking beneath the river, were made as continuations: each starts on the last frame of the shot before, so the motion carries through the cut.

The shots

1. 

   01The road

   From above: one car, headlights on a forest road at night.

2. 

   02I wake and I’m driving

   He jolts awake at the wheel, the dashboard glowing amber.

3. 

   03No brakes

   His foot stamps the pedal and it sinks uselessly to the floor.

4. 

   04A light ahead

   A point of light like a star, far down the road.

5. 

   05The angel

   The car skids to a stop in front of her, wings unfurled in the headlights.

6. 

   06The dark path

   She takes his hand and leads him through the trees.

7. 

   07The river

   They wade into black water together.

8. 

   08Full of sharks

   Underwater, the shapes circling them close in.

9. 

   09Not the same car

   Back at the wheel, but the windscreen is cracked and the light is sickly green.

10. 

    10She begs me

    The angel returns, older and ragged, kneeling in the headlights.

11. 

    11A cigarette

    She gets in beside him and lights up, wings crushed against the seat.

12. 

    12Broken as well

    Two figures through a shattered windscreen, staring at the road ahead.