Film Scratches focuses on the world of experimental and avant-garde film, especially as practiced by individual artists. It features a mixture of reviews, interviews, and essays.
A Review by David Finkelstein.
Trapped Between Frames is a poetic 11 minute video by Nazare Soares which uses film as a metaphor for the experience of moving between different worlds. We see a series of caves with a river flowing through them, and the image is rapidly quivering, alternating between left and right halves of a stereoscopic image, which is one way to achieve a simple kind of 3D effect without needing special glasses. A figure in a black robe (Aya Toraiwa) moves through the space, and she seems to be exploring it without being fully physically present in it. She does not quiver; she is an ordinary 2D image, and the outlines of her body are indistinct. There is a round hole in the center of her body, and we can see the cave through her.
Later, we see the same figure in a forest, but in white, and the round hole has become a round mirror which she holds in front of her. As the film moves back and forth between worlds, she uses the mirror to reflect the sun’s rays directly into the camera, and whenever she does this, the figure in the black robe vanishes. She is like a mythological figure or a goddess, and her mirror is the power device which enables her to move between worlds. At times this goddess holds a crow on her wrist, which may be her animal form, or a symbol of vigilance or far-sightedness.
At one point, goddess and crow are seen clearly to be standing in front of a screen on which the film of the forest is being projected. Soares’ use of this film screen, as well as video layers in which we can clearly see the glitches and noise of analog video, adds another layer of poetic meaning to the work. Film and video become metaphors for creating and moving between worlds, as the difference between stereoscopic and 2D images is a metaphor for different levels of reality. Trapped Between Frames effectively and poetically presents the idea of a multilayered world with the framework of a single channel video.
David Finkelstein is a filmmaker, musician, and critic. For more information on Film Scratches, or to submit an experimental film for review, contact lakeivan@earthlink.net.
Read also:
Film Scratches: Seduced by Spectacle – Where the Night is Going (2015)