It is nearly dark in Meeting House Square, and that's when the film begins. It's perfectly timed to begin as the last rays of light disappear behind the roofs. Hush, they tell us.
The Irish premiΦre of Feature Film by Douglas Gordon is about to start. This is "a cinematic presentation of a re-recording of Bernard Herrmann's spellbinding and evocative soundtrack for Vertigo". Art lecturer Francis McKee says the film shows how "we all have it in us to be monsters". Creepy. But, he admits he may have "discovered" this morbid outlook in South Armagh, where he grew up.
Caoimh∅n Mac Giolla LΘith, a lecturer in Irish at UCD, says he loves how the film focuses on "obsessiveness, frustration and desire".
Architecture student Saloua Bougajdi, from near Casablanca in Morocco, is curious to see the film too. Loic Breteau, from Angers in France, has also been tempted in to Temple Bar's Meeting House Square for a gander. The gig is organised by Temple Bar's outside visual arts programme, as part of the Diversions Festival. Handsome, debonair artist Laurent Mellet, just in from surfing in Co Sligo, says the film is "kind of cool". His own work will be unveiled shortly on Fishamble Street in the form of a sculpture entitled "I Wish I Could Sing . . . Love".
Then, with darkness wrapping itself around the square, Mellet, his friend and fellow artist Peter O'Kennedy; his younger sister Ashley Mellet, and his friend Philip Burgess are gone like ships in the night.