See Memory is certainly one of the most unique-looking films that Mental Filmness has ever screened. Composed of 10,000 hand-painted stills brought to life in a sort of stop-motion animation style with morphing outlines and dripping paint, it has a hypnotic vitality that would be absorbing as an art piece alone. The well-researched voice-over monologue, however, gives the imagery an added layer of meaning by elevating it into a visual metaphor for the shifting nature of memory.
Some people think that memory is simply like a recording device that plays a scene from your life back to you verbatim. However, as neuroscientists and psychiatrists have discovered, age and life experience re-shape our memories, and the truth is that each time we remember, it’s an act of imagination. Some memories, too, are implicit, and our body is recalling them even if we don’t have words to describe them explicitly. See Memory uses these fascinating facts about memory to eventually touch upon the idea that most people are haunted by at least some traumatic memories, and sharing them with someone else can be an act of healing.
These days I feel it is becoming increasingly rare to see a true hand-made art film and I applaud director Viviane Silvera for completely committing herself to this labor of love, both in the analog painting process and in the numerous interviews she conducted with experts on memory. This mere 14-minute film is the reflection of massive work and is powerfully expressive of some philosophical universal human themes.
Be sure to watch Viviane Silvera’s short film See Memory in Shorts Block No. 5 in the virtual festival: https://watch.eventive.org/mentalfilmness2023/play/6519ba7f08ab3c006b976df2
Join us for a live Zoom interview with Viviane Silvera tomorrow evening, 10/24, at 7:30 p.m. using this link:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84936590397?pwd=ZxtBFMTLWbHg0qliSaJZiRxfIadJ98.1
