Interesting student short (I assume) from a 19 year old Atom Egoyan. A older man attends a retirement party for himself where he finds an audiotape of his boss reciting various incidents from the man's career. The main voice on the tape is Egoyan's, and the writing slips between juvenile and slightly more sophisticated irony. But the interest of the film lies not in its writing but in its central conceit: the disembodied voice of authority (c.f. Modern Times). Egoyan fans will immediately recognize the theme of technology as a filter and distorter of human communication as a major feature of a number of his films, most notably "Family Viewing" and "Speaking Parts." Egoyan uses stark black and white, and repeats three main images, the old man's face, the speaker, and the tape machine, with beguiling results. This film, along with "Open House" and "Peep Show," is available on the "Family Viewing" DVD.
