Thankfully, this film was not made in Smell-o-Vision

NORFOLK

A new independent film has just opened here, but indie movie producers can rest easily when the Sundance Film Festival rolls around.

Still, "Follow That Trash," put out by the folks at Keep Norfolk Beautiful, is sure to delight civic groups and science classes with its incisive look at local garbage disposal.

Writers Holly Carson and Nicole Dutil stick to a pure, chronological narrative in this 8 -minute DVD, selecting as their opening scene a woman wheeling a green garbage bin to the curb. They wisely do not flash forward or foreshadow events, instead creating suspense and forcing viewers to ponder what might happen and where it all may lead as the camera follows the trash.

The film then takes on a "Blair Witch Project" quality, as the shooting location of the camera seems obscured and a chartreuse-colored trash truck is seen raising and dumping a bin.

There is little time to ponder the possibilities or munch popcorn. Carson and Dutil keep pushing the story forward. Viewers rarely hear the universal "beep, beep, beep" sound in their heads, and truck number 3647 quickly arrives at the trash transfer station and dumps its load. There are few special effects, and Pixar surely was not consulted, but viewers can create their own by holding down the reverse button to watch trash leap back up into the truck.

At the regional landfill in Suffolk, the film takes a dark turn, more along the line of Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds," when thousands of gulls swarm and shriek into the frame.

From there, the producers shoehorn in a scad of product placements: Aquafina and Deer Park water bottles, a Campbell's Tomato Bisque can, Dole mandarin oranges, Libby's green beans.

The film races to a conclusion, then fades away with a "Beverly Hills Cop"-like techno track. Considering its brevity, viewers will be left wondering whether a sequel was already in the works.

Lon Wagner, (757) 446-2341, lon.wagner@pilotonline.com