Fourteen minutes is not a great length of time to tell a whole story. So the director and writer, Marco van Bergen, simply takes a single issue, that of a great "what if", "if only I hadn't turned away", "if only I hadn't hesitated", and follows that idea from the position of a young Englishman staying in Sweden. While the film suffers from the same problems faced by many gay filmmakers of gay themes, namely that of low budgets restricting the scope of the work, the end result is aided by the fact that a 'localised emotion' (if the reader comprehends such a notion) need be dealt with only in a localised setting. (Note the emotional impact of Hitchcock's "Rear Window" or Natali's "Cube", neither of which goes beyond a very limited geography.) Vattnet (Water) will not make it as one of the great gay short film stories, but it is a pleasant observation of a moment that most of us in our earlier, and definitely 'clumsier' years will remember all too well. Aided by a competent filming style and competent acting, and this cannot be a waste of a useful 14 minutes.
