UNCOMFORTABLE COMFORTABLE

‘Uncomfortable Comfortable’ was New Zealand’s first feature length drama shot on video. It is the story of Dale and Alice whose relationship is at a standstill. Avoiding conventional narrative structures and plot flag-posts, the film was scripted from improvisations and played out in real time.

“We wanted it to be that everything wasn’t conveyed just in the dialogue but also in the physical interaction between two people. That’s partly also why it’s shot in the style of a two shot where you’ve always got both people there, where it’s not moving around much, so you’re forced to watch both the people and the space between.(...) These characters are doing things in an annoying way, you want them to make decisions, to get up and do something. I wasn’t preventing it being annoying, I was preventing it being slick and organised. I think it’s more realistic, it’s closer to how people act in a real situation” – Campbell Walker in, Chris Holm, “Unkiwi Kiwi Flick in Real Time”, City Voice, 15 July 1999