Godland (Hlynur Palmason, 2022)
I wanted to travel, to see the land and get to know it, photograph it and its people.
Years ago I made a short film called Kvinnefrisen and a filmmaker friend of mine saw it and had a problem with it. Kvinnefrisen is a film about something we might want to wish wasn't there, or wasn't happening. It's difficult, and unpleasant, and confrontational, but the fact remains that the topic exists, and Kvinnefrisen exists to drive headlong towards this unpleasantness.
My filmmaker friend would have rather that Kvinnefrisen was something else, something that offers hope, or an alternative. But if Kvinnefrisen was anything other than what it is then an audience member would be given a free pass to exist in a world where they aren't complicit with something they might wish wasn't there. Put simply, we swim in a poisonous river, and we don't want to talk about it.
Often I'm presented with images of worlds that shun the unpleasantness that we live in on a daily basis, and sometimes I wonder what the purpose is of doing this. Perhaps this is wish fulfillment, and if we present a world we would like to live in enough times then maybe that wish, and that world, will come into existence.
But so far, that's not the case.
Then there are those who see art and creativity as a means to celebrate and platform the beauty of the world we live in. To offer some respite from all the unpleasantness and to give us an opportunity to bask in the splendour of what is, even if what is isn't what is right now.
Life is difficult, and doesn't make much sense, and films should probably be the same - that's the way I look at it. The world around us, the world of things, of rocks, of ocean, is eternal - while we are ephemeral, fleeting. We exist in a world of feelings and thoughts and noise and sensations, and then it's over, and our bodies join the mute world of things, of objects. Try spinning that into something that makes people feel good.
Years ago I made a short film called Kvinnefrisen and a filmmaker friend of mine saw it and had a problem with it. Kvinnefrisen is a film about something we might want to wish wasn't there, or wasn't happening. It's difficult, and unpleasant, and confrontational, but the fact remains that the topic exists, and Kvinnefrisen exists to drive headlong towards this unpleasantness.
My filmmaker friend would have rather that Kvinnefrisen was something else, something that offers hope, or an alternative. But if Kvinnefrisen was anything other than what it is then an audience member would be given a free pass to exist in a world where they aren't complicit with something they might wish wasn't there. Put simply, we swim in a poisonous river, and we don't want to talk about it.
Often I'm presented with images of worlds that shun the unpleasantness that we live in on a daily basis, and sometimes I wonder what the purpose is of doing this. Perhaps this is wish fulfillment, and if we present a world we would like to live in enough times then maybe that wish, and that world, will come into existence.
But so far, that's not the case.
Then there are those who see art and creativity as a means to celebrate and platform the beauty of the world we live in. To offer some respite from all the unpleasantness and to give us an opportunity to bask in the splendour of what is, even if what is isn't what is right now.
Life is difficult, and doesn't make much sense, and films should probably be the same - that's the way I look at it. The world around us, the world of things, of rocks, of ocean, is eternal - while we are ephemeral, fleeting. We exist in a world of feelings and thoughts and noise and sensations, and then it's over, and our bodies join the mute world of things, of objects. Try spinning that into something that makes people feel good.