Lodela by Philippe Baylaucq, 1996, 26 min 24 s. Direct link: Lodela.
Stark and Sublime Poetic Dance.
Mythic, primal, visionary. I watch Lodela over and over, each time finding more elements in the stark simplicity.
The film is in black and white. The camera lovingly caresses the shadows and planes of the dancers bodies. Camera angles change, from witnessing to being in the centre of their motion looking outward. The choreography is organic, flowing with the natural rhythms of the body. I feel the breeze on the reeds, the storm on the ocean, the planets in the sky. The music is ethereal, gentle. Human voices wake us, and we do not drown, but come to life, emerge. We are born.
The whole of a human life is here, in fetal form, our birth, growth, love, death. The Sisyphean task of our life. Longing, desire. The beauty of the body. Motion, its beauty.
The dancers, Jose Navas and Chi Long, are lithe, muscular, perfect specimens of us, and perfect if opposite reflections of each other, taut as dancers, graceful, expressive, minimalist. A slight reminiscence of Butoh in the expression of the dance - yet there is no horror here, rather a beauty of newness. They are soulmates. They are like strange flowers writhing and crawling and jumping and coiling on the white face of the moon. They are the life in the original amoeba of the planet. We watch the primal cell, the fusion of chromosomes, their dance.
They are at the beginning of everything. A film of the birth of rebirth. They are love.
The final image, where he closes his eyes to awaken as her is profound.
This film by Philippe Baylaucq is poetry. A masterpiece.
And then this, oh Duchamp! Especially the ending, exquisitely filmed and edited.
Pas de deux by Norman McLaren, 1968, 13 min 22 s. Direct link: Pas de deux.
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