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First, the Recap:
The fluidity of constantly transforming configuration. We witness the disposition, the make up, of so much around us each and every day. How much of life is static, unchanging and how much is filled with an ever-fluctuating, free-flowing, dynamically engaging nature that draws us in and allows us the opportunity to assess, ascertain, and decide exactly what it is we gain from being a part of it? For to look at all creation around us with tunnel vision is to miss out on all the amazing worlds our imaginations can take us to, not to lose sight of reality, but rather to acknowledge that there is so much more to be appreciated beyond the surface and, if we’re patient enough, we can experience a beauty in the world that is both haunting yet undeniably captivating, oozing, dripping, streaming with a life all its own.
Next, my Mind:
It’s another lesson in the unexpected, the atypical, the irregular, the out of the ordinary when it comes to both witnessing and describing this 5-minute experimental non-narrative short film from director Megan Moore that screened at the 2nd Annual 2019 Berlin Illambra Experimental Film Festival housed at Salon AM Moritzplatz and hosted by Illambra. But, here’s the thing, the eerie, ghost-like quality of the images that pass before the viewer’s eyes is just wonderfully modernistic, straight-forward, yet magnificently enigmatic in its execution as it depicts, quite literally, the slow decay of film as it melts under intense heat or other factor that creates its demise.
Yet, from the very start, it looks like we’re glimpsing an alien galaxy in the far reaches of our universe. Then, it appears we may be seeing the tiniest of life forms that slither around under a microscope in a drop of seawater. Maybe it’s the ominous presence of a eldrtich spectre creeping up on us in the dark. Or, perhaps, we’re whisked away to an entirely unnatural landscape only found within the confines of one’s mind and fantasies. That’s the magic of a film like this, as it’s taken a simple thing in overall concept and turned it into a visual display that makes one’s mind wish to latch onto forming a specific picture of what’s being seen, yet ends up lost in the chaos of the imagery’s slowing expanding disintegration.
You cannot help but be strangely mesmerized by it all, the myriad of wild expanses and notions you can formulate while watching it. This remains even as the hole of what is seen soon dissipates, dissolves, and evanesces into one incomp0rehensible blur. Frankly, this is the strength and merit of eclectic, innovative thinking as far as this critic is concerned as it doesn’t have to take high budgets, uncreative “done before” narratives or ideas, and big studios to present quality cinema that’s worth taking in if we as the moviegoing public are willing to step outside our own norms to at least be open to trying out what indie efforts have to offer, which, like this film, are truly artistic regardless of being “outside the mainstream”.
So, while thoughts are slightly more brief here than some of the other films from BIEFF 2019, let this not be a detrimental sign by any means. In total, “Ectoplasm IV” is assuredly the style of project that needs to be seen and wholly appreciated for the expressively original piece that it is and give due credit to the filmmakers like Moore for being purveyors of unique material that shakes up the status quo in the realm of cinema and gives permission for us as the audience to let our own imaginations run free with interpretation and, this critic hopes, a newfound admiration for the art they produce.
As always, this is all for your consideration and comment. Until next time, thank you for reading!
