When I saw the runtime of 2007’s PVC-1 (a mere 85 minutes), I became concerned. I’ve noticed not only that movies of late are getting shorter with each passing year, but a correlation between the length and quality: last month’s The Final Destination spanned a mere 82 minutes; May’s Dance Flick ran 83 minutes; in January, The Uninvited clocked in just shy of an hour and a half with 87 minutes. It’s fairly understandable — (some…maybe five or so) filmmakers probably figure that no one wants to see two hours of crap — but there are those out there who do, and it’s not fair to deprive them of it. So the idea of seeing a movie that doesn’t at least make it into the 90s of minutes made me apprehensive.
10 or so minutes into PVC-1, though, the brevity made sense, and my qualms were put to rest. PVC-1 isn’t just an 85-minute movie — it’s an 85-minute single take. From start to finish, there are no cuts, no fade-ins or -outs, no splicing, nothing. How’d they manage it? Director and writer Spiros Stathoulopoulos strapped the camera to himself so he could follow the actors at will.
Considering the plot, based on the true story of Elvia Cortés, a Columbian woman who, in May of 2000, was killed by a bomb placed around her neck by terrorists demanding 15 million pesos (that’s $7,500), trying to get an 85-minute shot in one take must have been harrowing to say the least. Not a role in this movie was a simple one, each demanding a high level of emotionally and physically draining commitment. They had to travel about roughly four miles (this is just that one good final take), Stathoulopoulos with a steady-cam attached to his back, and Merida Urquia, playing Elvia, confined by what must have been horribly uncomfortable piping around her neck.
The semantics aside, shooting in real time is risky. Apart being exhausting to film, single-take features don’t always get the kindest reaction. Many critics feel they don’t leave room for the sort of emotional impact post-production can create, and that they’re too daunting (and possibly irritating) for audiences, who have grown accustomed to the comfort of cuts and screen fades and time manipulation.
PVC-1, however, pulls it off. The film may not be long, but as we journey with Elvia and her family in a race against time, every second seems to last forever. By strapping the camera to himself, Stathoulopoulos makes it, and subsequently us, into part of the movie, a silent, ghostly, horrorstruck observer. It doesn’t focus on just one character, and so we are allowed to follow all of them through an unimaginable hell: the family patriarch, riddled with guilt because he can’t take his wife’s place; Cortés’ children, terrified at what might happen to their mother; the explosives expert, trying to diffuse the bomb before the unthinkable; and Cortés herself, who at first bids herself to stay calm for the sake of her family but soon finds herself coming undone. It doesn’t help that the bomb periodically beeps, sending her into fits of panic.
"I shot it in one continuous shot to show that life is not a joke,” said Stathoulopoulos in a 2007 interview. You cannot go back in time and edit things out. We wake up and in two hours we can die, we can be dust.”
He gets his message across. Watching this movie we feel invested. We’ve seen this family suffer, and we want desperately for Elvia to make it out okay in the end.
DVD Bonus Features
No extras on this one, folks, but the film’s well worth it.
"PVC-1" is on sale September 15, 2009 and is rated NR. Foreign, Thriller. Written and directed by Spiros Stathoulopoulos. Starring Alberto Sornoza, Daniel Páez, Hugo Pereria, Merida Urquia, Michael Schorling.
