Telling A Story Without Telling A Story

As I posted days ago, I’m interested in the audiovisual image as a way of learning and exploring my own story. I have been in this research since I arrive here. “Smell The Roses Now” is another attempt of digging in my own memories and using them as the trigger for learning and telling. In this opportunity my research was about the time in the image and the time content in the image. I wanted to work with long takes, with an image that is non-figurative and with a non-narrative structure.

The long take in documentary was my first interest. How can observation, almost contemplation tell a story. Nathaniel Dosky with Threnody (2004) and Ben Rivers with This is My Land (2006) are two authors that inspire me through this search. Even if I don’t achieve the complete sensibility necessary for the long shot (both in the shooting and in the editing) the process is more than important, is transformative. If I review my images from a few months ago they were almost snapshots, now I can wait, and wait.

The non-figurative image was the second exploration; in doing so I reviewed a lot of found footage and experimented with images of buildings as part of the piece that I’m going to show tonight. It could have worked but I didn’t really like it. Any way in which I could treat my images as found footage, how could I take them out of context? How could I liberate them from the pressure of representation? I believe that this goal is better achieved in my documentary.

Finally my big struggle was not having a narrative structure, my internal fight with the beginning, climax and end. I wanted the viewer to ask himself about what is happening, to complete, to assume in one point and doubt in the other. I wanted these images to trigger other memories and questions. It was difficult since at some point I wanted to tell a story. I felt the pain of not having a fixed narrative structure. I felt the pain of trying to find the rhythm in the images and sound without turning it into a simple documentary or, on the other hand, without being intentionally entropic. 

Susana