Abigail Mumbi is the sole player in writer/director James Ongige's quiet psychological thriller No Exit, a film where very little happens and yet there's seemingly no escaping it. 

We're introduced to a lone woman (Mumbi) as she begins to walk down a seemingly ordinary corridor. It would seem she's trying to leave, yet within moments realizes she has returned to the same place. 

And so it goes. 

Mumbi is at first patient. She studies her surroundings and creates what she believes to be a logical way out. Yet, along that way, the space she is in changes or so it would seem. Doors appear and disappear. Shadows shift. Ongige's own original score for the film amplifies the tension, a tension that ebbs and flows and shifts in form and structure. 

Everything is normal. Nothing is normal. 

There's an intense physical reality to what unfolds, however, the long our lone woman encounters unexpected obstacles the more her attempt to escape becomes a psychological one where memories are unreliable, silence penetrates the psyche, and the mind starts to fracture. 

At a mere eight minute running time, No Escape effectively uses its time to build the idea that sometimes progress is an illusion and our ability to survive isn't so much dependent on finding the exit but understanding why there is no exit. 

This winning Kenyan short becomes increasingly claustrophobic, Mumbi's sense of isolation grows and our own tension heightens as we're uncertain exactly what's unfolding and how all of this is going to resolve. Ongige grabs our attention and holds on throughout the film's impactful story. 

Written by Richard Propes
The Independent Critic