THE NATURAL ROUTE
LARUTANATURAL
This is a short film by Álex Pastor which gives another point of view on how we use memories, and how a life could be backwards.
The title of the short is a palindrome "The word palindrome is derived from the Greek palíndromos, meaning running back again (palín = AGAIN + drom–, drameîn = RUN). A palindrome is a word or phrase which reads the same in both directions."
What would happen if you waked up and couldn't remember you name? Coud we avoid suffering if rather than growing older we rejuvenated constantly? Can you imagine a life backwards? And in that case, could it that mean a synonym of happiness? Could we understand better our present/future with our memories?
All of these questions are exposed by the young director Alex Pator, who created the following short film in 2004 for his final project at ESCAC.
(There is no English traslation for the short, but imagery is important to understand the story, explanation of the narrative events are written below)
The short was nominated for a GOYA in 2004, it won the prize Premio Nova Autoría in the Sitges festival in 2004 and the Best Short Film in the prestigious Sundance Festival in 2006.
David, thE main character in the short film, has recently waken up after an accident and is incapable of remembering his past. Every single detail of his past life, his house, his wife Arual, even his name. Everything in unknown for him. (The main character doesn't have any memory, so he doesn't understand the present). Even though he doesn't know anything, he feels something strange, not normal in his life, and maybe his past, his memories can bring him the answer to what is wrong, and who he is.
Alex Pástor has inspired me, and made me realize in a different way, through a backwards life, that without memories we can not understand who we are, what our life means.
Who hasn't dreamed of wanting to travel to the past, to better moments in life? But even if we could avoid that feeling of suffer and pain of life, would we be condemned to loose again all of what we have loved? Pástor makes us realize, that in the end, maybe life is a brief palindrome:
LARUTANATURAL (THE NATURAL ROUTE)
Through his memories whilst living his life backwards David understands his life, his future.
After watching the short, I did some collages and drawings inspired by the theme and what I had learned from it, how life can be different if we live it backwards.
I chose an old photograph of me and my mother, the picture reminds me of my childhood and all the summers spent in the swimming pool. In the short film, pictures from the past are an important motive, so using one of my childhood pictures which is a special memory for me was an interesting idea.
From the image, I started a process of creating A4 sketches where I wanted to include text and questions that are exposed in the short.
What would happen if you waked up and couldn't remember you name? Could we avoid suffering if rather than growing older we rejuvenated constantly? Can you imagine a life backwards? And in that case, could it that mean a synonym of happiness? Could we understand better our present/future with our memories? Who hasn't dreamed of wanting to travel to the past, to better moments in life? But even if we could avoid that feeling of suffer and pain of life, would we be condemned to loose again all of what we have loved? In the end, maybe life is a brief palindrome like LARUTANATURAL the natural route.
To introduce the text in the poster and involve the photograph from my childhood, I cut out from the water the image of me and my mother. I used the stencil, to write down continuously the text shown above always respecting the shape created from the two bodies.
I did several A4 posters during all the process, combining different papers and colors, in one of them I actually used the cut image of me and my mother and wrote on top of it.
After watching the short, I did some collages and drawings inspired by the theme and what I had learned from it, how life can be different if we live it backwards.
I chose an old photograph of me and my mother, the picture reminds me of my childhood and all the summers spent in the swimming pool. In the short film, pictures from the past are an important motive, so using one of my childhood pictures which is a special memory for me was an interesting idea.
From the image, I started a process of creating A4 sketches where I wanted to include text and questions that are exposed in the short.
What would happen if you waked up and couldn't remember you name? Could we avoid suffering if rather than growing older we rejuvenated constantly? Can you imagine a life backwards? And in that case, could it that mean a synonym of happiness? Could we understand better our present/future with our memories? Who hasn't dreamed of wanting to travel to the past, to better moments in life? But even if we could avoid that feeling of suffer and pain of life, would we be condemned to loose again all of what we have loved? In the end, maybe life is a brief palindrome like LARUTANATURAL the natural route.
To introduce the text in the poster and involve the photograph from my childhood, I cut out from the water the image of me and my mother. I used the stencil, to write down continuously the text shown above always respecting the shape created from the two bodies.
I did several A4 posters during all the process, combining different papers and colors, in one of them I actually used the cut image of me and my mother and wrote on top of it.
The final poster I feel more confident with is the last one. Using the stencil to draw on top of two book pages, where memories and stories are written, and then writing on top of the book the text creates a more powerful image than the rest. After finishing the posters, I realized that to create a bigger impact, the posters could have been done on a larger scale, rather than being reduced on an A4.
I really like the depth you go into when talking about your research and you create really original and well thought out responses- I love your style as it is refined and neat but still really creative!
ResponderEliminarThis post is really nice and exposes me to your independent work, the short video although was not in English did make me think and analyse. The way it was filmed was really suspenseful especially at the beginning I was scared to see what was in the bath. Other aspects I liked about the short video was the sound that was associated and tied into the movement. I think your posters are so beautiful and to me feel really poetic. Even the way you photographed it such as holding it in your hand could be an independent poster on its own- you holding the creation creates the sense you are looking down and remembering your past. I do like the way you have experimented with different background and using the image of you or the silhouette. This in itself is really engaging and allows me to see your thought process. Perhaps to strengthen this even further play around with other images or other memories and try to present them in the same way because it works really well and is very strong as a image.
ResponderEliminar