"Trapped" - Elizabeth & Leo
1/2 inch open-reel videotape Black & White Sound c1970 9:23
Summary: A skit by Basement Project about a woman’s confinement to her domestic work and oppression under her husband.
Title number: 21542
LSA ID: LSA/28245
Description: A black-and-white handheld skit records a Black couple in a kitchen. The film follows Elizabeth, an unhappy wife, who debates how she can find her freedom and live a life outside of her domestic chores. Pots and pans line the shelves behind her, as she speaks to herself. She decides she’s going out in the evening.
Elizabeth’s husband Leo returns and demands a cup of tea, to which she retorts that he can try to make his own for a change. She says “You don’t own me”. There is only one person seen on screen at each time, as the actors are filming each other. He approaches the camera and hits Elizabeth (behind the camera) in a POV-shot. She laments his infidelity and abuse and leaves the home. The next day, Leo is unable to make himself breakfast without Elizabeth’s help. In the next scene, she returns, bereft at her lack of options except returning to him, while also soliloquising her love for him. Instead of apologising, Leo retorts, “You upset yourself”, as Elizabeth begs for his forgiveness. Leo takes Elizabeth back and we have a classic happy-unhappy ending of the women’s domestic melodrama.
Credits: Basement Project (Producer)
Locations: Tower Hamlets
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