Marc S. Nollkaemper, “The Space Between Us” (2015)
In a future post-apocalyptic world, where the air is toxic to breathe, and scientists are experimenting with giving people gills to breathe underwater (and going to extraordinary lengths to capture water-breathing biped mutants to extract their gills – this of course means these mutants will end up being killed), an ordinary janitor Juliette (Elsa May Averill) on night shift in the science lab discovers captive merman Adam (Kiefer Zwart) in the nick of time just before he is due to be operated on. She quickly decides to get him out of his water cage and then packs him into a bag filled with water and onto a trolley. She races the trolley out of the lab and onto a roadway. Security guards, alerted by a scientist searching for Adam through the intercom, attempt to stop her but are warned not to fire at her. Too late – Juliette and Adam roll off the roadway and fall several metres into the ocean.
The 13-minute short is remarkable for its visual work, especially in the scenes that follow Juliette and Adam’s plunge into the ocean, and for its emphasis on action over dialogue to drive the admittedly sketchy plot. Character development is very thin and Zwart is given very little to do, to justify the actions Juliette takes to rescue him and the relationship that later develops between them. How does Juliette end up as a cleaner in the first place and what is the scarf around her neck covering? Is Juliette a failed experiment in transplanting gills from mutant sea creatures like Adam to humans? If so, why the scientists treat her so badly and give her such demeaning and dangerous work to do?
The film attempts to say something about the lengths to which some individuals will go to save themselves at the expense of other people and of their fellow living beings, without giving any thought as to how their actions will affect the wider ecology. However, the short film treatment leaves not only Juliette and Adam as rather flat but also its plot and the themes underlying the plot. By contrast, Guillermo del Toro’s “The Shape of Water”, with a similar premise – indeed, many accused “The Shape of Water” of plagiarising “The Space Between Us” – is far more successful in exploring its 1960s political context and highlighting the power dynamics between marginalised communities represented by its heroine and the sea creature she falls in love with, on the one hand, and political elites on the other. Humans’ treatment of the sea creature becomes a test of their own humanity and morality.