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First, the Recap:
Stories of the ancient world. Filled with heroic, legendary tales of epic proportions, our fascination with the fantastical remains unabated even thousands of years removed form the eras they were originally created and written in. What might be a more intriguing study, however, is to wonder what it would be like for a known figure from one of those magical ages to experience a contemporary viewpoint involving her own great grandchildren and the overall state of mythological beings living in such an age as it currently is. For Medea, it has been long since passing, far removed from the old world’s focus on myths. She travels forward to visit her great grandchildren, along with way running into her father and her former lover Jason. While the trio find moments to frolic and play, the interest in their origins but lack of wishing to return to their own time haunts them.
Next, my Mind:
Being straightforward and honest as I always strive to be when assessing films, I had to re-visit this 15-minute effort from director Philomena Lauprecht twice to try and gain a better overall insight into its meanings and intent, which I cannot fully say I could arrive at. Part of the large offering of films at the 2nd Annual Berlin Illambra Experimental Film Festival housed at Salon AM Moritzplatz and hosted by Illambra, it truly ended up being one of the projects on my “least favorites” side of the lineup, again, not because of a lack of admiring the overall effort put forth by Lauprecht, but more because it was simply too obscure and offbeat to truly maintain my attention enough.
Now, I will say that another facet of at least trying to ascertain the film’s larger thematic focus is to be familiar with the general source material the story being presented is based on, which is found in the myth of Medea and Jason. For those not familiar, most seem to indicate Medea was the niece of the goddess Circe and granddaughter of the sun god Helios who ultimately meets and falls in love with Jason while he is on his quest for the Golden Fleece. Their story is mixed as to its ultimate ends, but here, the film seems to be attempting to illustrate how Medea, long dead, wishes to move forward in time to see the current lives of her own great grandchildren, only to find a world not at all what she remembers or expects.
In trying to link her past to this contemporary reality, she, Jason, and her father all share in an adventure to re-explore their origins, even through the desire to return to their own era is lost on Jason and Medea’s father, even as she most likely desires to go back to a time where myth was king and the denizens of the time appreciated it. Here is this current society, it is about elite classes ruling through technological knowledge rather than pure imagination and invention, which doesn’t seem to sit well with Medea. But, they strive to re-create a mythological viewpoint, much to their joy and dismay as events unfold. Again, I may be one hundred percent off here when it comes to divining the film’s purpose, as again, it is highly surreal and unconventional to a point of distraction unless you were or are familiar with its foundational concept its based on.
The other admittedly unique factor here is that these ancient characters are being played by children, and in the case of two of the characters, it appears there’s been a gender swap for the roles they play, which is innocent and perfectly fine for what the film is. These child actors do their best, with some evident awkwardness during the execution of certain lines of sequences, but not going to hold that against anyone, as they appear to enjoy the effort they’re a part of, and that is a joy to watch. In total, with its very basic visual presentation and somewhat hazy, vague narrative (without doing some research before or afterwards), “Lessons In Myth-Making” is certainly indie film, definitively experimental, and perhaps more a lesson in knowing that “out there” is ok, but when it goes a little TOO far that way, it could be detrimental for the intended audience to enjoy.
As always, this is all for your consideration and comment. Until next time, thank you for reading!
