River of Light

Paul Perry and I have put our forces together once before. That combination of his words and thoughts with my sounds and images seemed to hit the right chords here and there.
Drift (For two NATO soldiers who drowned in an attempt to recover supplies from a river in the province of Badghis, Western Afghanistan, November, 2009) was selected and screened for several festivals and even won first prize in this years 'La Parola Immaginata' (Jury details)

Time for a follow up. Paul gave me some of his poetry to choose from.

I picked out  River of Light

 

red, green and yellow neon

blur the highway

into a river of light

the intersection appears

like a mirage

smoke wafting from the policemen’s flares

call them mourning candles

three a.m.

surrounding the scene

the intersection

like a small island of sorrow

the car should not

be cut in half

so easily, so simply

but it is, there

we watch, dumb spectators,

held back

by yellow tape

as the police measure

confer and agree

the yellow plastic

covering the unnamed dead

flaps in the wind

like an ignominious flag

a warning, a reminder

flapping absurdly in rhythm

with the smashed blinker

 of the halved car,

again yellow

until the ambulance appears

and departs, easily, simply

the shattered glass swept away

the car removed

the tape taken

so that everything

looks as it did

an hour before

when we passed

on the other side

an unending kaleidoscope

a blurring, ever-moving

river of light

It's a poems (much like 'For two NATO soldiers...') that creeps up to you as an almost dry recapitulation of a daily newspaper article. And then it hits you, full force, in the stomach.

I needed very simple images. I wanted fragile, yet powerful. Light, yet disturbed. The same for the sounds.

Paul gave me a recording and I went to work on a suitable track;

While creating those soundsI got the idea of filming poppies. I knew of a small narrow strip full of them, in between two railroad lines. A flower that grows in the middle of concrete and iron. Strong yet fragile in the constant wind of trains. They worked perfectly.
Right at the end of the film I added images of reflections of an ambulance light and combined those with the sounds of heavy breathing.

Enjoy...


Words & Voice: Paul Perry
Concept, Camera, Editing & Music: Swoon