'The
cloud that fades away'
While
watching the film minute I developed two perspectives. The first one was my
first and spontaneous impression, the second one a 'second' impression that
connects with certain information regarding what we've learned so far in this
seminar.
For
one or two seconds it seems like someone was playing a record, then suddenly
something explodes and a big cloud rises that continues developing. Besides
there is a calm and dark melody played which sounds rather scary to me. To me
it is the sound of a 'process'. This melody of process reminds me of a
documentary, a documentary about a war. I imagine the cloud to be the cloud of
an explosion during a war, maybe from a bomb. The melody in the background
stays the same as the cloud develops for the rest of the film minute. My
association with something being processed does not go out of my head. Suddenly
it seems to be a cloud of a chemical reaction. Maybe someone prepares
something... to me it must be something bad, because of the pessimistic melody.
My different associations get mixed up and what I feel is the destruction of
the world. Land, life or something is dying, but still, in the end there
remains something. It could be the meaning that there remains always something,
there cannot be nothing, even if destruction happens.
Regarding
what we have learned about films in this seminar I come to another conclusion,
but one that is similar to my first impression. The hand in the beginning is
not playing a record, but placing some film strips into a chemical solution.
Still, after that, there is an explosion or something that reacts. The film
must be breaking in this second and the consequence is something that looks
like a cloud of a bomb or a thunderstorm and it keeps changing its shape until
the minute is over. Maybe every film is a kind of surprise. Who knows what
might happen to the material of the film or what is projected on the screen.
That question can not be answered for sure. The cloud that fades away and
changes its shape can stand for the possibilities of development a film can
have and that a human being cannot forecast everything.
Lorena Benter
Lorena Benter