in the beginning, there was a film.

This is my first entry here, i recently discovered a cultural phenomenon that many have experienced with no direct explanation or resources to help them understand what those experiences may be. I made this blog / Forum / whatever you want to call it, in hopes that it can provide a little more information or at least some comfort in those of us who think we are going a little crazy.

There seems to be many people who believe they’ve seen a film, they remember details, or images, they get flashes of it. But no films match what they remember. It’s like something you a distant flash from your childhood you can’t quite place, a sun-bleached photo. But you’re not. Because I thought i was too.

I thought that no matter how vivid the images, how close of a memory it had felt, that it didn’t matter, because I just dreamed it up. Or so I’ve been told. It happened in my freshman year of college, I was studying film, so I was always trying to go out of my way to find stuff I hadn’t seen, at the time I thought the more niche the film, the less people knew about it, the more I would enjoy It.

It’s one of those mindsets you have when you’re still developing yourself, it makes you feel special, not because it puts you above anyone else, but because It feels personal, like you’ve found a piece of yourself you didn’t know was missing. Like it chose you, which isn’t true. Art in any form can mean worlds to so many different people at many different times in their life. But at that time I was so sure it was meant for me.

It was a little independent film called River Rose. It was a lot harder to pirate films circa 2009, so searching for obscure films took a lot of dedication and planning. I was that type though. I guess that’s why this phenomenon intrigues me so much, it’s a very familiar feeling.

I was known as the weird film girl while in school, so there would be people who always came to me with stuff they found at a shop somewhere, or old VHS. Near the end of the semester I was already through with most of my classes so I was desperately seeking things out i hadn’t seen.

One of my classmates who I only talked to a handful of times told me his dad had a collection of weird tapes, and he was getting rid of them, so of course, I had to get my hands on those. I mean of course i had the thought that some random classmate could give me a bunch of old pornos as a joke, thankfully nothing like that.

River Rose came to me on a scuffed up miniature DV tape, that looked as if it were thrown around a few too many time. The front of the tape was written over with the words STATIC STRAIN, which I now see as an appropriate title for this website as it takes me back to why I set out to make it.

The film was beautiful. Told through the perspective of three women, Elizabeth, Alice, and Particia in three corners of New York city. Who all fell in love with the same guy at different times. The film is split up and fragmented, flashing between the timelines. The man is almost like a shadow, only showing his face for a few brief shots which were distorted by the shaky handheld camera. The way it was shot was loose and energetic, the camera flew through the film, putting you right against the characters in a way that made you feel as if you were experiencing everything with them.

There’s a scene at the end of the film that has sunk itself into the depths of my brain. Elizabeth and the man are riding a motorcycle through a tunnel, very similar to Kong War Kai’s Fallen Angels. Except on the same stretch of road Alice is riding in the opposite direction, and it slows down for a second, the shaky camera glides as Elizabeth and Alice meet eyes for the first time.

It glides back to the front of motorcycle where Alice is now looking at the long stretch of road in front of her and suddenly all of the cars that were just there vanish. She stops and gets off of the motorcycle, standing in the middle of the empty tunnel as she looks at the stretching road which looks forever long and hidden beneath the burning horizon. Then looks back to see the path she had just taken is slowly closing in, the sky sinking into a deep blue which feels crushing. Slowly the tunnel begins to change around her as she begins walking toward the opening in front of her, fading with her steps, the stone tunnel, slowly turning into the walls of a furnished apartment. Where she finds herself pacing anxious, waiting on the man and when he does arrive, he is cold and distant, socializing with other people, and she is at his arm, but its not her, no she didn’t feel like it was her in that moment, and the man doesn’t notice her lack of presence, and the weight is crushing, and the deep blue is sinking into the scene, and the camera is pushing in on her face, and the words around her twist into a harsh buzzing as she finally gasps.

Breathing in, the camera flew back, the buzzing shifted into the sound of a running stream. Alice stood alone in a vast field surrounded by roses. Silent but the delicate rush from the river. She turned looking for the road but there was no road anymore, only field which stretched and tucked itself beneath the edge of the horizon. It was only her, the river, and the roses. The water rose from the banks as it covered the field, drowning her feet as she peered down to see she was no longer herself.

The movie cuts off here, I don’t know if this ending was an intentional slap in the face, but it felt like it. It felt as if it ended without any resolve for the other characters. The only focus was Alice, who spent the first segment of the movie as a drug addict, with low impulse control. The ending is a great resolve for her, but Patricia and Elizabeth got sucked into the background, the only thing I could assume is that Elizabeth faces the same heartbreak as the others, and Patricia, moves back in with her parents as a 27 year old college drop out.

I wanted to watch it again after everything, there’s so much i just don’t understand about it, there’s so much that works, as an achievement in filmmaking, but not as a story. It would’ve made more sense if at least all of the characters had met, but they don’t. Every segment was separate from each other, which was probably the filmmakers intention, but i don’t know.

The DV tape was eaten by the machine, i have a feeling there may be more to the film because it cut before the credits. All i was left with was a tangled mess of half melted plastic, and an feeling in my stomach I have never felt before and still can’t describe.

If anyone who is reading this is has seen this film please contact me. Please let me know it exists, and not something i dreamed up. When i mention it some people believe it’s a screenplay i conjured up, that my pitch is convincing them to buy into the tall tale of shitty DV tapes, and lost media. I don’t talk about it in my personal life anymore.

So yes, i believe you. There is an undiscovered sea of films that have been washed away to some depth by the currents of time. Together I hope we can reel them back in, and finally give them a place to live.