Eclipse (Review)
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| © Ivan Maria Friedman |
ECLIPSE
Directed by Ivan Maria Friedman
Starring Elena Samuylova (Elena)
Genres : Mystery, Spirituality, Experimental
Runtime : 16 min
Format : 2:35:1 - Color - HD
Country : Switzerland
2020
Storyline :
Elena is prisoner in a dark realm not of this world, where the lines between dreams, memories, and realities blur amongst the non-existence of time. Amidst a lunar eclipse, Elena awakens from her captive slumber and embarks in a metamorphic journey, a surrender to a higher calling. Guided by the spirit of nature, Elena seeks something she does not know, but once knew, as she is guided through her personal purgatory until she reaches a universal paradise.
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| The director, Ivan Maria Friedman © |
Eclipse, as its name suggests, allows us to escape from time and reality.
It is a purely sensory work in which each image is purely mastered and worked meticulously.
A true painter's performance.
Lights and colors seem from another dimension.
Indeed, the graying and saturated shades suddenly passing to a strong clarity, are hypnotizing and intriguing.
One wonders how the director could have done to create this extraordinary result?
The use of digital technology leads to this modern and contemporary outcome.
The fluid and light framing and camera movements, as well as the recurring use of fade to black are in perfect harmony with the atmospheric soundtrack. The rhythm, slow, pushes us to contemplation.
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| © Ivan Maria Friedman |
What about heroine?
She acts like a goddess in search of a destiny that wishes her well.
Dressed in white, she seems to embody an angelic soul lost in this disorder which sometimes tends to chaos, to something infernal but livable. She tries to survive in order to find the divine light.
His playing, at once sober, natural and sincere, is perfectly anchored with the filmic visual bias.
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| © Ivan Maria Friedman |
But it is not the only one. Effectively, the whole of nature has its say: the trees, the sea, the sky... Even the design of the soundtrack is worked on it. We can distinguish the wind, the songs of birds but mainly the rumbles of thunder.
This creates a disturbing and unreassuring atmosphere, almost nightmarish.
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| © Ivan Maria Friedman |
The director is an unconditional lover of earthly nature and the beyond.
The final sequence in which divine light appears to the heroine's eyes, set to intoxicating, celestial music, almost makes one shed a tear for what life itself is and what it can hide behind its fleeting darkness: beauty, purity and love.
By Hallucinea Film Festival
