'Terminus' Explores Limits of Narrative

Cinderall Castro’s tan line betrays her customary paleness as the camera zooms in on her right shoulder. It’s an intimate moment, one in which the female protagonist transforms into a real and believable person, and also one in which the movie “Terminus” becomes just as much the viewer’s story as it is the makers’.

The feature film, which will be screened on May 2 in the Student Organization Center at Hilles Cinema, is the debut of Harvard freshman Isidore M. T. Bethel ’11. Despite the fact that Bethel and his collaborator—University of Chicago sophomore Jack L. Mayer—are still very young filmmakers, “Terminus” reveals a decisive and mature artistic consciousness. Inspired by the city of Atlanta, the film’s series of intertwined and unrelated vignettes create a personal feel, supported by deliberate cinematic choices made by Mayer as writer and director and Bethel as cinematographer and editor.

The project, which the two co-produced, started in November 2006 when Mayer approached his former high school classmate Bethel about putting together a film about Atlanta. Both felt strongly about their home city, one positively and one negatively, and wanted to embark upon an artistic adventure devoted to it.

“I really loved Atlanta and thought it was like an unformed ball of clay with so much potential,” says Mayer. “Izzy thought it was a shithole.”

The two structured the film to resemble the city itself. Bethel notes that just as Atlanta is an eclectic town with little sense of community, so too the vignettes within the film are essentially unrelated, despite being set against the same geographical backdrop. The dynamism of the city also determined the way in which they filmed “Terminus.” Mayer advised Bethel, who also acted as camera operator, not to use shot lists, but instead to have a more improvisational approach.

“We both wanted there to be a sense of fluidity and that there’s too much going on for the camera to capture,” says Bethel. “Because that’s how we see the city. You can’t be everywhere...If I had well-composed shots, there’d be no way you’d be able to convey that.”

In one coffee shop scene, the male protagonist, Joe, is sounding out a Coca-Cola jingle he wrote recently when a siren drowns out his conversation with his friend Alli. The camera leaves the two actors and follows the speeding ambulance through the window, though their voices continue in the background. The camera cuts back to Alli, who says, “I think someone just died hearing your jingle.” The moment—both the ambulance passing and the actor’s response—was completely improvised.

Visual and Environmental Studies professor Stephen Prina—who teaches Bethel’s directed research at Harvard—says of the scene, “Izzy decided, ‘Just a minute. I’m going to follow that ambulance.’ It could be a plausible narrative thread as much as something else. It challenges the concept of the narrative.”

There are stories in “Terminus” that are begun but never completed, as well as narrative threads that are left unexplained. This not only adds to the sense that there is too much for the camera to capture; it also gives the viewer the opportunity to construct his or her own interpretation of the film’s meaning. In one scene, the character Malcolm has a photograph in his bathroom of another character’s artwork, though the two have never met.

“It makes the story something you can contribute to,” explains Bethel.

In addition to narrative structure, Bethel and Mayer sought to achieve a personal feel through their production choices and do-it-yourself methods. A simple handheld video camera was used, and occasionally the point of view wobbles or frames appear over-exposed. This, Bethel says, was a result of allowing the space to dictate how he moved and reacted, and led to the feeling that anyone could have made the film.

“We wanted to convey an emotional thing through a medium that looks kind of amateurish so it’d be very personal, very down to earth,” says Mayer.

Because of the unassuming nature of “Terminus,” its intimacy, and its improvisational structure, the film lends itself to multiple interpretations

Bethel says, “What we managed to embrace without knowing it is what I find most beautiful in the movie.”