Papers Please (2018)

This short film is based around the video game of the same name which follows a passport inspector as he goes to work accepting but mostly rejecting people from the country by inspecting their documents.

The Setup:

In my opinion the film does a good job of setting up the atmosphere. It opens with a wide shot of the Inspector walking to his stand, showing a run down outside building, cutting to inside the office with rustic colours being grey, greens and yellows. This makes the whole thing feel very 'communist' is probably the best way to say it where the majority of the people are quite poor and have to follow the rule or face the consequences. Or that's what I get from it anyway. We next get a few close ups of everything that's important to the inspector being; the rule book for his work, passport stamps, gun he keeps in his safe and lastly the photo (Looks like a poor Photoshop job) of his family which does get a few more close ups through out the piece indication how important they are.

Montage:

Once the film gets into what the Inspector does it has a nice montage to accompany it showing what the inspector looks for on the passport followed by a quickly showing the passport owners and them giving their stamp, until it's broken up by a character that is involved with the story. Where the inspector has to make a moral choice one that you can see he instantly regrets by showing a key item accompanied by the photo of the family followed by a mid shot that lingers on the Inspector showing his emotion. This is then followed by another montage indicating that he has to move on like nothing happened, until the montage is broken again where he faces another moral choice.

Ending:

Not gonna spoil too much but I have to say the ending is the weakest part about it more for the stiff acting if anything. But it does a good job of showing chaos that takes place with the inspector walking outside in a wall of smoke slowly dissipating until a gun shot rings out.

Overall the film is alright it's a 10 minute piece with an interesting concept but I wish there was a conflict between the Inspector with the Army solider.

Here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFHHGETsxkE