Run / Directed by Ruth Greenburg

RUN

DIRECTED BY RUTH GREENBERG
UK // 2020
10 MINS
A woman goes out on her morning run. As she crosses her city and into a park, she deflects the everyday micro-aggressions of passing men. On a track through the woods, she encounters a walker and tries to ignore her instinct that he is a threat. Too late, she realises they are alone and there is nowhere to run

Reflective Encounters

“The chord of an earphone set brushes against a woman’s shoulder as she prepares for her morning jog. She straps herself up – arm band, shoe laces, hoodie – in what seems like battle armour with the decisive briskness of a veteran. Niamh Algar embodies the determined yet anonymous jogger with coolness and restraint, her physical presence confronting the unknown with the instrumental help of her music to accompany, shield, and uplift her.

Once the runner pops her earphone in, the world is suddenly subdued, explorable, and her own: the protagonist’s ability to tame her surroundings is also supported by the film’s clever use of score and sound design. Leaves cracking and distant chatter make room for electronic tunes, upbeat remixes and synths to mark the trajectory of a morning ritual turned symbolic. First-time director Ruth Greenberg paints a petrifying picture with cold-blooded precision when framing the scene and off-screen space as perilous. The conflict of woman versus nature is in the music and rhythmic editing alike, the sonorous blasts and the rapid cuts building up towards a strained relationship that resembles the dynamics between hunter and hunted. A conqueror can become prey, says the rule of nature, and game she does become, only for a little while.”