Consumed

When Simone first shared the short story ‘Can You Eat the Wind’, I was immediately able to visualise how we would adapt it, and bring Consumed to the screen. Describing experiences that are rarely represented on screen, the loss of a much-wanted pregnancy, I knew I could portray Faye’s feelings, the depths of her sadness, her isolation and her all-consuming grief. Depicting a sorrowful aftermath, with the bonds between her and her husband fraying and fracturing, Consumed shows how Faye’s world shifts as she closes down. Mourning the loss of a future life, we see her withdrawing to a cellular self, innate and animal.

My vision was always for a film that tells a powerful, a resonant story, one that follows Faye on a journey that is as physical as it is emotional, and challenges perceptions about how we cope with human agony. Consumed combines compelling performances with dark and beautiful visuals that carry us from Faye’s everyday world into depictions of the thoughts and feelings swirling inside her. Starting with closeness and intimacy, we physically see the tensions pushing Faye and Tom apart, making them distant and separate, interactions that develop the story while connecting us with the motivations of our characters.

The film works with visual depictions of scale to communicate the enormity of the loss of a tiny, fragile life. We underpin this approach to performance and add to the narrative by moving from the galaxies Faye sees in her precious embryo suspended in the golden amber-like oil, to the shadowy shape of her husband carrying his child towards her. An emphasis on distances, dimensions and barriers help us relate visually with Faye’s experience. We witness the deep red blood in the milky white bathwater blooming like a flower bursting into life, and cut from the missing heart beat in the scan to a closeup of Faye’s eye reflecting an image of her room, the pupil a mirror on a now pointless external world. Sound also intensifies the experience, heightening the sense of Faye’s disconnection, tuning in and out, as her mind struggles to connect with the here and now. We hear her imagine the subtle calling of the foetus, and see Faye frozen and isolated, caught inside her own world, as life goes on without her.

Shifting between the microcosmic and the infinite, Consumed is a challenging and emotional piece exploring the psychology of loss.