Ascending Ballard Down

This short film gives a haunting look into the seaside town of Swanage. The peaceful diegetic sounds of the town are partnered with a melodic voice over which guides you through the experience of Swanage. Frames sparse of action or life leave a haunting effect which resonate through the broken and abandoned symbols of the town’s history. Our only on-screen character seems to cycle from location to location portraying that the town is so devoid of life that people do not even drive through.

The isolation of the character in these lonely and haunting settings reflects on the viewer as they too begin to feel the emptiness of Swanage. By encapsulating the small towns history into fourteen minutes there is a craving for more information but as the film seems to suggest, there is no more, and all that Swanage has to offer is laid bare.

The artistic themes of this piece are all tied together by the painter Paul Nash, the film exploring the Surrealism of the town around him and how that encapsulated into his work. Whilst the landscape is shown as beautiful in a cold and empty way, it does not fill one with the desire to visit Swanage but instead sits as an ode to the broken seaside towns of Britain’s coasts and the inspiration that can be drawn from even the bleariest of places.

Written by Saskia Welch