The Snowmen, an Independent Film From Chicago
On Monday, November 18, 2019, in Jambalaya Arts, Inc., Oshkosh, Wisconsin, I had the honor of showing my film Francium (available for viewing on YouTube Channel John Berner) to an audience including two people in independent film from Chicago, Olivia Lilley and Harley Foos.
Francium preceded The Snowmen (2019), a twelve minute film with a dynamic presentation in sight and sound. Olivia Lilley, the film's writer and director, has a theater background, works well with the actors. A theater director making her first film, Olivia Lilley uses widescreen and a color palette often saturated with overhead lighting. The sometimes garish lighting reflects on the situations of the group of friends acting as irritants towards each other.
Regretfully, I've seen the film just once--there were several stoppages caused by buffering, too--so my total grasp of the content isn't optimal; I don't remember characters' names, except for Lucifer, but I recall the lead performer is played by Electra Tremulis. We start with her showering off grime, a thick brownness flowing from between her toes like cocoa. Her two roommates bicker with her, Electra leaves, walking the Chicago sidewalk, muted light, left eye decorated by a black sunburst pattern. This shot, like many others in the movie, demonstrates the intriguing atmosphere throughout.
Encountering an enthusiastic African-American friend wearing a pair of earrings that seem to be alive in the light flashes bouncing from their surfaces, Electra descends some stairs into a place with a low ceiling. Lots of young people dancing to a deejay's spinning, recurring images of a clear glass bottle spinning on the floor, kisses, the ambling nature of a party in its third or fourth hour.
Music, all the work of Chicago bands (like No Men), is loud and immediate in The Snowmen. The final scene in the apartment with weed smoking, unlike most such TV or Hollywood scenes, rings true. Altered state helps steer their minds away from thinking about what's going on with their lives.
When Electra and her friend have returned to the apartment, they find Lucifer lying unconscious on the kitchen floor, brained by a frying pan. Forehead bloody, Lucifer comes awake, claiming he was cooking food and the pan fell on him. They don't believe him, the pan hit him with force. There's a sense that one of the other two roommates hit him. "Who owns a frying pan owns death," William S. Burroughs wrote.
I have the sense that this eruption of violence (or accident) occurs within a framework of people reacting to trouble or turmoil through, as Olivia Lilley put it after the screening, smoking and drinking their ways into oblivion--until another period of lucidity leads to another event, like the pan incident, whatever or whoever's actually behind that. The frying pan introduces a Dada element. The victim of the head trauma was making food, apparently, with the pan that dropped on his head from a shelf, so the pan is in two places at once. Or it's a matter of the characters being fucked up.
These interpretations are mine.
English author J.G. Ballard (Empire of the Sun, Concrete Island) composed some examples of "condensed novels." These compressed narratives have the essential elements of a novel, but are the lengths of short stories. The condensed novel shows a spread of varied and intersecting ideas inside a small work, as does this excellent short film, The Snowmen.
On Monday, November 18, 2019, in Jambalaya Arts, Inc., Oshkosh, Wisconsin, I had the honor of showing my film Francium (available for viewing on YouTube Channel John Berner) to an audience including two people in independent film from Chicago, Olivia Lilley and Harley Foos.
Francium preceded The Snowmen (2019), a twelve minute film with a dynamic presentation in sight and sound. Olivia Lilley, the film's writer and director, has a theater background, works well with the actors. A theater director making her first film, Olivia Lilley uses widescreen and a color palette often saturated with overhead lighting. The sometimes garish lighting reflects on the situations of the group of friends acting as irritants towards each other.
Regretfully, I've seen the film just once--there were several stoppages caused by buffering, too--so my total grasp of the content isn't optimal; I don't remember characters' names, except for Lucifer, but I recall the lead performer is played by Electra Tremulis. We start with her showering off grime, a thick brownness flowing from between her toes like cocoa. Her two roommates bicker with her, Electra leaves, walking the Chicago sidewalk, muted light, left eye decorated by a black sunburst pattern. This shot, like many others in the movie, demonstrates the intriguing atmosphere throughout.
Encountering an enthusiastic African-American friend wearing a pair of earrings that seem to be alive in the light flashes bouncing from their surfaces, Electra descends some stairs into a place with a low ceiling. Lots of young people dancing to a deejay's spinning, recurring images of a clear glass bottle spinning on the floor, kisses, the ambling nature of a party in its third or fourth hour.
Music, all the work of Chicago bands (like No Men), is loud and immediate in The Snowmen. The final scene in the apartment with weed smoking, unlike most such TV or Hollywood scenes, rings true. Altered state helps steer their minds away from thinking about what's going on with their lives.
When Electra and her friend have returned to the apartment, they find Lucifer lying unconscious on the kitchen floor, brained by a frying pan. Forehead bloody, Lucifer comes awake, claiming he was cooking food and the pan fell on him. They don't believe him, the pan hit him with force. There's a sense that one of the other two roommates hit him. "Who owns a frying pan owns death," William S. Burroughs wrote.
I have the sense that this eruption of violence (or accident) occurs within a framework of people reacting to trouble or turmoil through, as Olivia Lilley put it after the screening, smoking and drinking their ways into oblivion--until another period of lucidity leads to another event, like the pan incident, whatever or whoever's actually behind that. The frying pan introduces a Dada element. The victim of the head trauma was making food, apparently, with the pan that dropped on his head from a shelf, so the pan is in two places at once. Or it's a matter of the characters being fucked up.
These interpretations are mine.
English author J.G. Ballard (Empire of the Sun, Concrete Island) composed some examples of "condensed novels." These compressed narratives have the essential elements of a novel, but are the lengths of short stories. The condensed novel shows a spread of varied and intersecting ideas inside a small work, as does this excellent short film, The Snowmen.
Vic Neptune
Comments
Post a Comment