NO TRAILER CURRENTLY AVAILABLE
First, the Recap:
Have you ever heard the idea of “rinse, dry, repeat”? Of course you have, as it often is a phrase that can get associated with describing anything that might be considered “the norm”, perhaps mindless, with no sense of true fulfillment or purpose other than it simply needs to get done. Therefore, while in the midst of trying to accomplish said tedious task, what else do we fill out minds with in a vain attempt to break the otherwise jarring dreariness of it all? On this particular day, a set of unidentified hands fills the frame with one primary goal in mind–buttering a piece of bread. “Ding, ding”! May the ponderings and tiresomeness commence.
Next, my Mind:
Very much at home as part of the 2nd Annual Berlin Illambra Experimental Film Festival housed at Salon AM Moritzplatz and hosted by Illambra, this just over six minute short film from director Martha Ormiston certainly presents an effective study in accomplishing something simple and repetitive, with underlying thematic focus on the notions of monotony, routine, and the mundane via showcasing the buttering of a piece of bread while executing the visualization of it in a most obscure and quite creative, colorful way through illuminating her subject in an iridescent blue/black light periodically that shatters the otherwise intentionally flat, baseline colors that make up the aesthetic look of the film.
What then carries a humorous undertone to the proceedings is the silent “subtitle” style narration that accompanies the effort, as it delivers the other facet of the purpose here by effectively providing the audience with the unseen lead character’s inner monologue that more than makes it evident that the body is doing one thing but the mind is completely on something else almost the whole time. Well, at least until we begin to realize perhaps that the musings are actually NOT so far from what is being enacted, but rather a demonstration of the distracted obsessiveness the character is feeling in DOING the task they are and fussing over every possible detail while at it.
Is this not the case, though, when we put our mind to something, with total pre-conceived intentionality, but then once in the midst of it, we begin to question ALL the aspects of what we’re aiming for to the point of what might as well be sheer madness? I would say it’s the reflection of just how impatient we’ve become, that even the easiest of tasks we seem to treat with such overt scrutiny that perhaps it’s US that MAKES the thing become this exercise in tedium rather than the task itself being the actual root cause of our unsettled mindset. However you choose to interpret it, the film, along with its uncannily ethereal lighting effects entering the scenes throughout to give the proceedings their sudden, vibrant flare, speaks to those aspects of our attitudes we don’t always wish to face.
Therefore, in total, “Bluestein” is indie film at its offbeat best in portraying so much that’s open to ongoing debate and hopefully elucidation as to how it chooses to depict our stubbornness as human beings to muddy what should be so routine, but instead turn it into a production that explores every iota of its execution to the point where we just might end up with something we might NOT have wanted from the start–one crazily glowing, overly-buttered piece of bread! Unless that’s your thing, of course.
As always, this is all for your consideration and comment. Until next time, thank you for reading!
