A struggling student falls asleep in class, whilst staring at the pyramid on a dollar bill. When he wakes up, he finds that time has stood still; the other students and the teacher remain motionless, as the teenager wanders around the classroom, confused by his bizarre predicament.
An early 8 minute black and white short by Spanish director Nacho Cerdà, Awakening, with its confident direction and interesting imagery, certainly shows that its creator has talent. However, it is not a completely successful venture due to a few unanswered questions (the relevance of the pyramid is never explained), a rather predictable ending (that has been used many times before in other movies), and less than stellar acting from its lead.
Cerdà does manage to create a nice creepy and surreal atmosphere, and his handling of the 'frozen in time' scenes are extremely well done, but I really wish that the story had been on a par with the film's technical aspects.