7:35 in the Morning
Live-action drama, UK, 2003
Director: Nacho Vigalondo
Writer: Nacho Vigalondo
Language: Spanish (English subtitles)
Colour: Black and white
Runtime: 8 minutes
Short synopsis
The strange, irrational behaviour of a man in a café turns out to have a rational explanation that is completely irrational.
Long synopsis
A woman breezes into a café and orders her usual coffee and pastry. She notices two men, one with a guitar, the other on keyboards, and looks at them quizzically. Shrugging off the oddity of a band in the café, the woman sits down to read her paper. She becomes aware that the other diners are looking at her and that there is no movement or sound from them. Suddenly a man's arm appears from behind a pillar and its owner starts singing: "Last night I didn't fall asleep until early in the morning, and I've got a very long day ahead of me." He emerges from the pillar and starts to dance - two saucers in his hands. The band strikes up as he continues to sing.
The woman looks around and notices a pile of mobile phones by a waiter's feet. The people around her are still frozen. Realising that something is amiss, the woman gets out her mobile phone and dials a number, but drops it as the man points at her and sings, "Or maybe it's that woman who comes in and immediately orders a cup of coffee."
The other people in the café begin to nervously join in with the song, reading the lyrics from notes in their hands. The song becomes a love song to the woman and, as the man is distracted by a dancing sequence, the woman manages to speak into her phone for help, giving the café's address.
One customer stalls on reading his line and the man gets impatient and reveals a belt of dynamite around his waist. There is no escape. When the refrain comes up, the customers get up hurriedly and join in the choreographed dance routine. The music stops abruptly when sirens are heard outside. The man sings his last line, " But like the best things in life, this song begins and this song ends," is handed a big bag of confetti, and leaves through a back door. A man shouts, "Stop! Put your hands up! Drop it!" and is interrupted by an explosion. The last shot is a close-up of the woman looking on in disbelief, confetti raining down on her.
Background information
About the film
Nacho Vigalondo, who plays the main character, wrote, produced and directed 7.35 in the Morning, financing it with money from the Basque government fund and two friends. Although the film was shot in only two nights, it took nearly six months from writing to post-production, costing a total of €18,000.
The film, like Vigalondo's other short films, started with him seeing the script as a game. He needed to find the reason, as a writer, for a musical scene in which all the elements, including the music and dancing - have a rational explanation. The solution was for him to make what he calls an 'anti-musical' about a man who can only express his emotions by singing, as he doesn't dare to talk to the woman he fell in love with. A professional choreographer helped to design a confusing choreography for a cast of friends and relatives that didn't know how to dance. Vigalondo chose to shoot the film in black and white for several reasons (see his interview), the most important being that he feels that black and white makes it more difficult to anticipate the mood or outcome of the film. He tried to avoid easy categorisation into comedy or tragedy genres, but tragedy came to be associated with his film without his influence.
The title of the film was to prove unexpectedly 'prophetic' when three bombs exploded on a commuter train in Madrid on 11 March 2004, killing 191 people and injuring 1,460. The first bomb went off at 7.35 in the morning. Vigalondo didn't consider changing the title of his film after the bombings as he feels that after a film is finished it 'belongs' to the audience and it is up to them to read it. For him it was an unfortunate coincidence that a film about the problem of communicating emotions became suddenly a film about terrorism, especially as he doesn't see himself as a political film-maker. As Basque-born Vigalondo explains, "The film's been read as a metaphor for terrorism. It was made before the bombings. But then the bombings occurred by a terrible coincidence at the same time and then people began pointing a finger at the Basques as being behind them."
The film screened at over 300 film festivals, was nominated in 2005 for a Best Short Film (live action) Oscar, and has won 54 awards.
About the film-maker
The success of 7.35 in the Morning propelled Nacho Vigalondo, born in 1977, from being an unemployed scriptwriter to finding recognition as an actor, screenwriter and director. He has since been awarded several film prizes in his various roles as actor, screenwriter and director for films including Snuff Movie and Tomar algo por ahí y eso. He has worked as scriptwriter for Gran Hermano, the Spanish version of Big Brother, and has acted in the film Un pasaje del terror. The sci-fi trilogy Código 7 and the screenplay for Koldo Serra's El tren de la bruja are some of his most recent projects. He also wrote the screenplay for the feature films Prime-time and Noches Transarmónicas, to be realised by César Velasco Broca.
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