Section 5 - Treatment

Synopsis

      Victor Bogdanovich Rumianova believed that when he moved to England he’d be safe. Safe from his abusive father’s business and from the cold of Russia, to enjoy an English life with his sister and start afresh in his own house, alone. But when things begin to not go completely to plan when the surprise introduction of Tam Noginai, a young fun-loving squatter who has made herself at home within his four walls, brings him quite far out of his comfort zone. But Tam has secrets, secrets which Victor has to find out – and he slowly begins to realise that even by himself he isn’t safe at all.

“Utterly brilliant – full of twists and turns which will leave you on the edge of your seat” Daily Star

☆☆☆☆

Treatment

(bold = opening scene I will be filming)

      Victor Bogdanovich Rumianova, a Russian immigrant and CEO of Rumianova Industries, has moved to England and is going to find the house he has purchased; a moderately small house just for his few weeks away from his home. He has been told that the house is empty and all his. The camera shows him walking down the street towards the house, holding an advertisement to the house and a map which symbolises his vulnerability and relates to the exotic because he does not belong there. The shot is to be a mid shot to show him, his surroundings and the items in his hand.

      Victor sees the house in question, recognising it only from the advert which is made obvious by the way that he has to look at the advert and back at the house to identify it as his own, heightening the idea that he is naïve, vulnerable and doesn’t belong there. He removes a key from his pocket and slowly moves towards the house, of course appearing quite apprehensive about living alone in a strange place. But as soon as he opens the door he finds that he is not living alone, since there are signs of inhabitancy in the house – make-up in the bathroom and dishes in the sink, beer bottles, food packets and female clothes scattered around.

      After staying up all night waiting for the unknown person to come “home”. This will involve cut ins of the clock ticking to exaggerate how long he is waiting. There will also be his own heavy breathing included as the questionnaire stated that that creates fear and tension within the audience, therefore it will be following the codes and conventions of a thriller. In the early hours, the front door opens and slams shut quickly. Victor sees a dark shape run past the door way and up the stairs to the bedroom. He follows, looking around to see where she is which can follow the idea of mazes and labyrinths (like in Silence of the Lambs). There is also irony in the fact that the “good guy” of the film is following the villain, which deviates from the stereotype of females being vulnerable in thrillers because she ends up being the killer, which is not at first apparent. There is a match in close up of Victor’s hand on the door of one of the bedrooms, from behind which there are sounds emanating. He hesitates for a moment before swinging the door open, where, in the room, there is a girl (who is later introduced as Tam Noiginai) mostly naked and clearly getting changed. There is a slight glimpse of her before she screams (“Get out of my house!”) and throws an ornament at him. He closes the door, apologising profusely in an eccentric Russian manner. He remains there fore a few seconds, his back to the door, which creates humour within the thriller (because ‘sometimes’ most people like humour incorporated in the thriller genre).

      The next scene is Victor and Tam sitting in the living room in awkward silence. It is clearly morning because of the light coming through the window, though the lighting will still be dark because of my editing, as dark lighting best represents a thriller (says the questionnaire). There is dialogue between them in which it is explained who they are and why they are there; the housing agency said that the house was empty to Victor, so he is inevitably unhappy at the squatter, Tam. They soon realise they are blatant opposites to each other, with Tam being fun-loving and carefree and Victor being the uptight, straight-backed business man. It will also become apparent that Victor is in England because his abusive and alcoholic parents are dead and he has come to live with his sister, and he is envious of Tam’s great relationship with her loving parents, shown through his facial expression. The audience will realise this with the two characters, and will learn about both characters through this dialogue, which could provide a subtle indication to the rest of the plot. She pleads with him to let her stay and he agrees, secretly appreciating the company after the neglect and lack of human contact in his childhood.

      Throughout the rest of the film the two characters don’t acknowledge each other much, making small talk most of the time and going about their own separate lives, with Tam going out and partying every night and Victor having his early nights. However, one night Victor hears Tam come home somewhat early. Thinking this is strange he rises from his bed to see if she is alright, calling out her name to no reply and the sound of running water in the bathroom. He enters and finds Tam washing her hands, with the water stained red. She looks up to the mirror and, seeing Victor standing behind her, intakes a breath and whips around, quickly coming up with a story about her cutting her hand, stumbling over her words. After she refuses his offer to get bandages for her, he returns to bed, listening to her retire to her own room.

      This unusual behaviour continues throughout the film, with Tam repeatedly coming home and immediately washing her hands, saying she keeps cutting herself but there is never any scar on her. Victor catches her throwing out clothes early in the morning covered in red. Becoming suspicious about this, Victor follows closely behind Tam when she goes out one night, making sure she can’t see him by staying in shadows, following her into the park next to their house. Within the trees Tam begins to run, and he follows briskly after her, twisting and turning through the trees to try and follow her while making sure she doesn’t detect him. After a while, in which time Victor loses sight of his room mate, he stops to catch a breath, when he hears a muffled male scream very close by. He winds through the trees, towards the distressed sounds, finding to his horror Tam stabbing a man, straight through the chest; looking perfectly calm and collected as she does. She knifes the man to the ground, repeatedly stabbing him until he stops moving, soaked in his blood and still looking quite emotionless. This deviates greatly from the stereotype of the vulnerable female in thrillers being stalked and killed, with the woman being in the position of control and the generic man being the one killed. Moreover, this follows my idea that a calm and collected killer is most effective in a thriller (found from my questionnaire), and also follows the code and convention of protraction because it is an inevitable outcome that there will be a killing in a thriller, and the many hints lead to the fact that Tam will be the one to do it. The killing shall be shown quite subtly, in the dark so not as many potentially disturbing images can be seen and without focusing on any pain, so that is fits in with my certificate of 15.

      Victor, of course being completely traumatized by the experience and too afraid to return home, goes straight to the police station to tell what he had witnessed – the police take one look at him and immediately take him to a questioning room, asking who he is, what happened and where. Forensics are sent to the scene of the crime and Victor’s house instantaneously while he explains the whole thing he witnessed and the policeman, confused, asks if he just ran away how did he get looking like he is. Victor, clearly just as confused, stares at the policeman, about to reply, but the man is called out. He does not return for a long while, but when he does he just has one simple question: “why did you do it?”

      Through the dialogue between Victor and the police the plot unfolds, with the revelation that no, no you don’t have a room mate. No one else has ever lived there. and the fingerprints of the knife are actually his – and all of the blood stains he saw upon Tam’s body during the killing is actually on himself, the clothes she threw out actually his own with no sign of any female ever living in his house. There is also the fact that Tam Noginai is an anagram for Imagination. His fingerprints have been connected with numerous other deaths over the time he has spent in England, being unidentified because of his lack of information on the police database and because of his recent immigration. He is taken from the police station to go to a bigger one where he will be locked up until he can make a plea, forced into the back of a police van to be transported. He looks out of the window where he sees Tam holding the For Sale sign from outside his house, before she turns it around and the words “I told you to get out of my house” are shown. The police van is then driven away.

      The final shot is a shot of the house, moving away from the front door and showing the For Sale sign, before the screen cuts out and goes completely black, immediately into the final song and credits. This follows the answers given on the questionnaire because it ends on a cliff hanger, which most people think is effective in a thriller.