The short film ‘Terminal Bar’ by Stefan Nadelman was full of different film making processes and effects. Almost the entire film is created from stills of photographs taken by Stefan’s father between 1972-1982. I found this father/son aspect very interesting. It added something personal to the film. The father took 10 years recording something that interested him and then his son recorded the same story but in his own way. Knowing the photographs were recorded over such a long period of time and were such a labor of love, gave the film a sense of passion about the subject which you could really feel throughout the film.

In terms of visuals, the photographs themselves were very striking but when paired with the music, speech, newspaper articles and graphics throughout the film, they became even more so. They began to tell the story and atmosphere of the bar. After a while I forgot that the film was made from stills as the speech overlay from Stefan’s father told the story and described the pictures.

As the pictures were taken over a time frame of 10 years, the chronology throughout the film was a very key theme. These combined with the newspaper articles from the same time period gave a quick history of those 10 years, almost as if you were there. Another interesting aspect of the film was when Stefan’s father re-visited the location of the bar and said that nothing had really changed in the area even though it had been years ago.

References:

• touristpictures (2013) Terminal Bar. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfWBbZBqYjo (Accessed: 11/10/17).