(Laurie
Anderson/2015/USA)
Avant
garde urban folktaler Laurie Anderson verbally riffs over a montage
of visuals and sounds in elegiac mode for her rat terrier Lolabelle.
During its hour and a quarter she touches on the nature of dreaming,
her relationship with her mother which was redefined after her
passing, the changes in society after 9/11 and a general rumination
on death brought on by Lolabelle’s passing. It is a wonderful,
meandering meditation that is somewhat dreamlike. Without being
overly melancholic or dark, although some of the descriptions from
her childhood are unsettling, it manages a quiet, gentle humour and
by the end has bound its disparate threads into a peaceful and a very
personal acceptance of loss. Like the quote from her Buddhist
instructor it is an attempt to “feel sad without being sad” and
it does a fine job. To my mind there is a parallel drawn between the
voracious data gathering on civilians after 9/11 and the impetus to
recount, remember and somehow solidify the dead in stories of the
past. There is one fleeting glimpse of Lou Reed, her partner who died
in 2013, sitting on a beach while she plays with a camera and the
earlier line, “It’s more about you than the person who died.”,
hits home as his shadow seems to silently hang over the entire piece.
She works over her grief and lets us in on it and this is a very good
thing.
(4/5)
No comments:
Post a Comment