Windmaker 2007 film by Kika Nicolena- woman struggles to find her place in the relationship to infinite nature.
Experimental film or experimental cinema describes a range of filmmaking styles that are generally quite different from, and often opposed to, the practices of mainstream commercial and documentary filmmaking. "Avant-garde" is also used to describe this work"
When looking for reference material we did not want to purely rely on mainstream music videos, as we want to produce an art-related film. Therefore i researched 'Avant-guade' films and come across this one by chance. Gemma and myself then reviewed the film and found it to be quite interesting. After watching it we got a synopsis off the Internet to explain the film, as with all films of this genre it was confusing and although we could visually see what was happening we wanted to research the meaning behind what we saw.
"The fleeing woman, who takes shape and dissolves in movement and tissues. Dance that is almost despair. The woman is a vision, she haunts the place that haunts her, fearless, no expression other than the despair of her dance movements. The woman is the ghost of the place.
The wind is made by the tissues of her long sleeved dress. The body that twists itself makes the wind blows. The wind brings the sound, the smells, the taste of that cold place, a humid taste, sad, heavy, but also light and subtle. It carries a sweet painful memory, of which the ghost escapes unable to forget it is the agony of the ghost of the place, of what never dies and survives the life that once was there, of what lies there unable to die, desperate memory of the absence. When the sun rises in WINDMAKER, the woman, the ghost of the place, walks like a shadow in front of a lake and mountains, frozen lifeless scenery, petrified life on an infinite sunrise that she walks in front of. Which sunrise doesn’t save a person from the nightmares, awakening that doesn’t relieve the dream, a ghost that doesn’t disappear when the light is on?
The woman, the ghost of the place, is in the water, she dissolves herself in water, she moves in the water and the water is now her movement, her dance no longer in despair, now soft. Icy, the dance freezes the bones, makes the day as blue and melancholic as the night, of a soft sadness, fluid like water. Only the face is off the water, of an Ofelia that drowns as slowly as her agony lingers, an stretched thread in slow motion that waits for the breaking moment, the thread/string of the cello that stretches the pain to the limit, leaving a cry inside, that always returns with that music from WINDMAKER."
When reading through this synopsis it is apparent once again it links to our film concept in its narrative and the mood this film is evoking. Whilst watching this we noticed the film uses dissolving and fading effects to portray its 'ghostly' quality and eerie feeling. There is clever filming, my personal favorite uses the water surface and ripples generated, to film the reflection shown in the water of the character. Therefore these techniques distort the image in an unnerving way but in reality it is just using nature to create an effect and no computer in post-production. This is the difference between most regular films and avant-guarde creations-where the directors are artists and want to invent and experiment with filming not relying on a program to do it. Fast paced camera shots add to the intensity of the film, and it becomes jumpy and uses flashing filming through the trees in woods where natural light injects through the branches to give impact in the film.
Everything is unknown, dark mixed colours are used and a mysterious blurred distortion is generated through the actress performing fast moving actions made to blur for effect on film. The camera at one point is hand held with the filming cast member running through the woods following the action, in narrative terms it suggests panic. This appears frightening being out of focus leaving the audience unclear what is happening. The film is dramatic, using close-ups of the face and flashing footage. The audience gets captivated by what appears to a possessed character and get caught up in her frenzy, which is theatrical, entwined with a ballet sense of movement contrasting to the fast paced shots. Light plays a key function in this film, and although bits were unclear it captured our attention, and is another reference of filming and techniques used and the editing process after to get these incredible effects.
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