On a Rainy Afternoon

While hunting around for some bright-young-things to promote on Portable’s new blog, I came across Kim Spurlock, the maker of several gentle, elegiac shorts.  My favourite so far is the atmospheric Buou Chieu (Afternoon, 2005).  Shot on 16mm, it’s a tale of a lost ghost who, on a rainy afternoon finds her way across the world to her family.

It’s 1985 – ten years after the fall of Saigon. Somewhere in America, a young girl plays at fishing with her grandfather.  They attach paperclips to coloured paper fish and then catch them with rods made of string and magnets.  Outside it’s raining, and the shots of the house are close – heavy with the feeling of being indoors all day.  A row of incense sticks quiver in the breeze, empty slippers sit waiting in a row and the girl and her sister curl in tight around their mother for an afternoon nap. This opening is one of the truest images of home I’ve seen in a long time – a whole sensory atmosphere is created in just a few short shots – the rain outside, the smell of the incense burning, the quiet neatness of the sideboard, and the warm sleepy feeling in the overhead close-up of the two girls on either side of their mother.  Everything is close and slow and tender – the characters even move slowly, as if half awake.  The camera is near without being intrusive.  When the father/grandfather dies, the scene is shown with a single still shot looking down on the daughter from behind as she realizes her father has passed.  No frontal shots are needed, all the love and sadness is shown in the way she leans forward to press her face against his.  Big ideas are alluded to, while the images themselves are clean and clear – lovely.

Fish (2003) also hangs on an intergenerational connection.  In this black and white film, a young boy wants to rescue a fish from the fish market.  He has just enough money, but his mother pulls him away, sending the coin flying.  An old man witnesses the boy’s desire, retrieves the coin, and buys the fish.  He packs the fish into his briefcase, takes it to the river, and lets it swim free.  I’m not sure how long the fish is going to survive the muddy tides of the Hudson, but that’s beside the point.  The beauty of the film is in the way the story unfolds shot by shot, without any need for explanation or dialogue.

Spurlock is a wonderful visual storyteller who makes clear shot choices – no shot is superfluous, gratuitous or there just because it looks cool.  It’s a motion of dissent to make quiet films in this noisy world, and I love her for it.