Watch running out

running out' is a movie about a woman planning to kill herself but becomes so angry as she writes her suicide note, that several hours pass and her anger extinguishes and overcomes her desperation. The movie is based on several real life experiences during which, in approximately 2 1/2 hour period, a woman runs the gamut of emotions from suicidal despair to grief, frustration, rage, and, finally, catharsis and peace. In the movie, this passage of time is shown by the gradual burning out of a candle that is lit at the beginning of the movie.

This is cinema verite, a fly-on-the-wall short that opens on a pile of women's clothes and shoes in a dark hallway. The clothes are tagged a Post-it note that reads 'For Carmen.' We hear water running and the camera follows the sound to a bathroom. We see a woman's bar feet on a drab, faded bathroom mat. The camera zooms out and we watch the woman draw a glass of water and light a votive candle.

We notice that the bathroom seems to have been stripped of all but but a very few personal items, including an heirloom vase on the window sill. There is a pen and a pad of Post-its on the hamper next to the bathtub.

The woman turns off the water, sets three large bottles of over-the-counter pills on the edge of the bathtub, and gets into the bathtub without taking off her bedshirt. We realize that she is preparing to kill herself. As the story unfolds, however, suicidality itself looms as the central character.