Bodysong

After looking at cycles I discovered a film by a director called Simon Pummell. He is mainly a short film director and this was his first feature length picture.

The film uses archive footage throughout the last 100 years of cinema and created a collage of human life, taking us through the different aspects of that in a very linear sequence. The aim here was to tell the story of one human life through the footage of cinema old and new and to bring to light the commonalities among the human race, in a world and age where emphasis is put on being special and different.

Overall I think it achieved this in a constantly engaging way. I liked how it used imagery from multiple sources, time periods and countries to give a complete representation of all of human life, without shying away from diversity. In fact, it often presents imagery which could be considered quite controversial such as explicit imagery taken from porn films throughout the ages and also representing homosexual relationships as well. I was impressed at the lack of political and social agenda this film has, as I've always considered it a hard thing for a director to retain their own political and social beliefs in their work as it is so easy to do so subconsciously.

The soundtrack for this is well considered. After watching an interview with the director, in which he revealed they wrote the soundtrack in chunks as the film was cut together, it is obvious Pummell wanted the music to be as much a part of the voice of the film as the images. It shows in the hypnotic and often ambient style which works so well in conjunction with these types of images in this type of film.

The last thing that really struck me about the film is the circular narrative. The last shots are part of the first sequence of images we see, so the film ties off with a sense of a constantly changing and moving circle. In terms of what I was looking for in my research, it really ticked a lot of boxes. I loved the use of found images, and it showed evolution and change, whilst also showing similarity, which for me is what the human race is about at its core.

I found that this related to both Reflections and Time Art, and so may be useful for figuring out how I want to approach both of those.