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First, the Recap:
It soaks, saturates, douses, floods, moistens, sprays, and splashes. Water. It makes up over 70% of the Earth’s surface and between 50-65% of an adult person’s body. The apparent softness of it can be as such, or it can be a force powerful enough to whittle away stone. It has the ability to quench a thirst or ravage a coastline with pounding waves or rushing torrents that sweep away anything in its path. Water. It is an ever-present source of life and death, as vast as an ocean or as miniscule as a raindrop, a constant that shows no signs of ever being absent from our lives. Water. Is the ebb and flow of humanity not the same? Is the soul and spirit of a person not filled with like calm and storms? What is it to be born of water, our origin’s starting point immersed in liquid?
Next, my Mind:
One of two short films featured at the 2nd Annual 2019 Berlin Illambra Experimental Film Festival shown at Salon AM Moritzplatz and hosted by Illambra that seeks to have the prolific resource known as water as its central core and essence, this just over two minute non-narrative experimental effort from director Summa Cilem and cinematographer Pia Volckmann opts to take the fluid element and apply it to the concept of life having had its origin point within it. But, beyond just this, it is a statement initially about the tenderness of the human soul, a connection we have with it that has been lost over time, a tie and bond to nature that slipped away and is in need of being reinitiated and experienced, all of it interwoven, shared, so that we may feel that intimacy with creation around us again.
The visual delivery of these notions is deliberately striking, like looking at old style film negatives, which brings an almost haunting aura to the imagery being presented. This however more than fits to the intent here, as it’s like watching a quirky dream, where the raw emotional state of the sleeper is candidly exposed, naked before nature, a baring of the soul itself. The octopi sequences are certainly an offbeat alternative that makes multiple appearances throughout the film’s hugely truncated runtime, but again, this is the manner of indie film when it comes to expression of ideas that in themselves may seem consistently explored, but then unconventionally displayed in the visuals we as the viewer are given to take in and contemplate.
It’s about ebb and flow and our relationship to the natural reality around us that has been forgotten in the hustle of life, a tainting of the purity we’ve come from, and the reminder of why we should strive to reestablish our partnership. On certain levels, I could feel a relatable sense of truth and agreement with what the film is aiming to do, but I also couldn’t help but feel there is much conjecture here and use of one’s own imagination to pull from the effort whatever meanings might strike you beyond the surface. Though, as I have said many a time while covering this festival, the very definitions of independent cinema demand that those watching it be able to allow themselves moments to draw from it what they will, while still ideally being able to extrapolate what the filmmaker is saying. It’s the admiration towards these filmmakers that I most extend, in that the minds behind the process to arrive at what we are filmgoers end up witnessing is truly on a different plane of creative prowess, even when so overtly abstract like this film. It’s simply impressive.
Therefore, in total, “Lucid Dreaming” is really exactly that as you watch it, a surrealistic journey in the study of our human existence as it relates to our inward immersion and originating connection, in this case, to water and how it all ties into deeper scope of who we are. Hey, the best thing to do is have the opportunity to watch Cilem’s film and then decide for yourself what meanings reside below the surface.
As always, this is all for your consideration and comment. Until next time, thank you for reading!
