Eventide

Editor: May Rigler

Toronto International Film Festival, Viennale

Spanish première

With its single, extended fixed frame, this is a filmic musing on the future and the uncertainty that accompanies it. Set along the coast of Gotland, Sweden during the annual Perseid meteor shower, a group searches the rocky shore and its sparse outcroppings of plant life in gentle pursuit of the unknown.

Night falls on a rocky beach. The evening is almost over, but the last part passes slowly. Almost so slowly that it's hard to know whether it will ever get dark, or even whether it was daytime before. This is immersion, this is its effect: the body itself disappears, leaving only eyes and ears. While the sky creates the suspense of its own opacity and blue takes over, a light appears among the rocks. Is it the reflection of something or is there someone there? In a game of darknesses, in Eventide it's hard to tell whether people imitate the sky or it's the sky that wants to be a person. There's a competition between sky and earth, each with its own possibilities. Is it magic? No, they're the Perseids, seen from Gotland in Sweden. A miracle that's a little natural, and also a little the result of the dark room, of the passing of time and of sitting -as we aren't often- with our eyes accustomed to seeing black on black. The most recent film by Sharon Lockhart, made with a small bunch of friends and their hands (with their mobiles) shining, explores the strangeness of a moment when the eyes aren't the object able to capture the most light and shade. Farewell - perhaps - to purely human perception.

Lucía Salas