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Clip description
The awkward hero – a boy with an analog tape recorder for a head – tries to ask his neighbour out on a date.
Curator’s notes
These scenes capitalise on Hello’s central visual and musical concept, as the hapless hero struggles to express himself through a ‘mix tape’ of sorts. Director Jonathan Nix creates bittersweet comedy from the contrast between the protagonist’s laboured analog functions and his neighbour’s speedy digital ones. However, old technology gets its own back later in the film when the hero visits a wise old gramophone for advice.
Nix’s musical score helps convey the hero’s emotions as he waits in suspense for his neighbour, suggesting that her arrival is an expected, regular occurrence. Having set the scene, Nix and editor Jeremy Parker deftly handle their repeated meetings in the corridor so that the story maintains its rhythm and doesn’t drag. The use of the same musical motif announces the girl’s second arrival. This cue and the audience’s understanding of the situation from the first scene in the corridor allow Nix and Parker to convey the pair’s further, fruitless ‘conversations’ with comic brevity.
