dir. Katie King

Using primarily the unexpected mediums of colourful textile art and black-and-white photography, Katie King weaves a tale of espionage, addiction, and an unexpected connection between two strangers. The narrator’s smooth, stylish voice-over, combined with the life and energy of the textile animation, gives Made For Duty Overseas the hazy effect of a noir film that you once watched in a dream.

Sri Lanka, December. Our tale opens to the narrator (Arabella Lindsay) floating in the hotel pool beneath a full moon, alone—until another woman (Valya Korabelnikova), whom the narrator has never seen before, emerges from the hotel. The strange woman is the quintessential lead character of all good noir stories: intriguing, mysterious, quite definitely a spy, and most importantly, prone to indulging in a sexy kind of vice. Vogue menthol cigarettes, in this case. Banned for sale in the UK, which makes them sexier.

We are fascinated. The narrator is fascinated, too, as—despite claiming to despise menthol cigarettes—she takes the stranger’s proffered cigarettes and sticks them between her lips. The pair share smoke and secrets as the night passes overhead. “I can’t tell you what we talked about,” says the narrator coyly, but she sketches the bones of their conversation for us—democracies falling, borders, passports, information bought and exchanged and sold. Something interesting that we might note is that both women, though they appear relatively young, have false teeth. They remove their teeth to converse—an easier way to smoke, or a mutual agreement to let their respective guards down, to trust the other when discussing such delicate and seditious matters?

Their conversation continues unimpeded into the early hours of the morning. Then the cigarettes go out, the smoke stops curling in the air; the mysterious stranger retires for the night, leaving our narrator to pull herself from the water and ruminate on her words.

England, January. The narrator returns home to a waxing moon and the knowledge that the encounter by the pool has changed something within her. We see that she exchanges her false teeth—worn, yellowed, rather stereotypically British—with pearly white ones, teeth that look more like the ones that the woman in Sri Lanka kept behind her lips. Yet she makes no other move to alter herself, does not involve herself in politics or grassroots organisations. It is almost as though she is waiting for something.

And then, coming home from work, the narrator spots it. Photographed for evidence, positioned almost purposefully in her empty apartment hallway—an empty package of Vogue menthol cigarettes.

I hate menthol, the narrator reminds us. Surely, we think, this is a sign. The narrator certainly does. How else could these cigarettes have made it here, to her home and to her country where they are so unwelcome? Surely she had been significant enough to linger in the stranger’s mind, to be considered worthy of contact? Look at how the conversation had impacted her, after all.

We wonder: Is it really a coded message from a spy met by moonlight or simply a bored woman’s mind conjuring conspiracy out of clutter?

The narrator seems convinced. On the discarded box, she highlights these words: Made For Duty Overseas.

And then the film ends, leaving us to speculate if she follows this enigmatic message to live out daring escapades as a spy abroad or if she returns to a quiet life in London, smoking perfectly legal cigarettes, her teeth growing a fresh patina of nicotine.

Made For Duty Overseas is a brief but beautifully stylised film, one that captures the imagination and leaves us with room for interpretation. Even if the narrative was not so charming, it would be worth a watch purely for the impressive artistry of the textile arts animation. An excellent short film for fans of noir cinema, with a colourful and feminine twist.