I remember one of my high school days, when me and few of my friends, while playing cricket – adjacent to a watercourse – found the burial of a dead body whose hands and one leg were clearly visible above the ground. That was terrifying for us and I never went close to the river stream thereafter. That was weird even though we know the fact that sometimes the tribals living near our village bury the dead body instead of cremating. The whole point of mentioning this incident is the short film “The Missing Hand” I watched recently.
Written & directed by Daniel Harding, “The Missing Hand” is a dark comedy that narrates an incident when housing developer Ms Whitman and a contractor Trevor who, while inspecting a land where they want to develop their future housing project, stumble upon a severed hand. Clueless of what to do with that hand, they start thinking different options – both silly and logical – in dealing with such a situation.
While Ms Whitman is concerned about the finding of a hand and the possible repercussion on her business if cops ever come to know about the severed hand, Trevor is more curious to think about the possibilities of finding the man whose hand is missing. Although Trevor ultimately agrees to bury the evidence, they meet another suspicious man who inquired about the hand as the claimant.
Watch the film “The Missing Hand” on Vimeo
As they simply try to avoid the mysterious man asking for his hand, they found another injured man resting near their car with a bloody hand. Evidently, this becomes clear to both Whitman and Trevor that this is the man whose hand has been severed by the other mysterious man.Nevertheless, considering this a short film with just an idea in play, “The Missing Hand” is indeed weird and at the same time funny in the league of dark comedy. Probably, it could have been better with little more content in terms of backstory. However, any such indie film with unique idea and sound execution needs to be appreciated.All in all, the film has very well portrayed the characters with different personalities as well as the expression of shock, surprise and confusion of average people in such an awful event that unfolds.
Nevertheless, both the lead actors are convincing in their roles and with great background score and tight editing, “The Missing Hand” is a good 7-minute watch. If you want to know more about the filmmaker and actors in this short film, you may visit their official website.
