As the swollen waters passed in front of him Mac saw hope and despair in every single ripple.
Originally he understood enough to know that what he was doing was sheer folly but as the first hours passed and turned into days Mac truly believed that were he to take his eyes off of the water then he would miss the very thing he was looking for.
And so our once proud academic has now descended deep into the kind of daily darkness that very few people ever truly return from.
As the camera moves slowly upwards and backwards in a long and mournful digital dolly the audience is left with nothing now but the view of a tiny broken man dwarfed by and alone in an enormous broken world.