PRODUCTION TEAM:
PRODUCTION: SARAH SPRING, SELIN MURAT, NATHALIE CLOUTIER, LAURA BARI
CINEMATOGRAPHY: LAURA BARI
EDITING: LAURA BARI
SOUND: STÉPHANE BERGERON
LANGUAGE: SPANISH
SUBTITLES: FRENCH
SUBTITLES: FRENCH
COUNTRY: Quebec
YEAR: 2013
RUNTIME: 96 MIN
RUNTIME: 96 MIN
CONTACT: DISTRIBUTION ÉLISE LABBÉ, OFFICE NATIONAL DU FILM DU CANADA, FESTIVALS@ONF.CA
RIDM OFFICIAL FILM SYNOPSIS:
"In her first film, Antoine, Laura Bari explored the world from the perspective of a blind boy. Ariel continues her impressionistic, ethereal approach to film as it delves into the unique perceptions of people with unusual bodies. Ariel is a man haunted by the memory of his legs, lost in a mechanical accident when he was 33. He is consumed with a quest to design and build his own prostheses so that he can walk again. Ariel is Laura Bari’s brother, and she filmed his ten years of struggle and transformation. Direct cinema meets poetry, storytelling and music, and a metaphorical story emerges: a dark fate redeemed by the brilliance of imagination."
The film features a personal drama, both psychological and physical, of trying to cope with a disability. Despite all the down times as well as family problems Ariel goes through, there is always a hope driving him forward, an inner force that makes him to endure all the difficulties and disappointments as well as pain. His motivational strength lies in his desire to walk again, to design and build for himself the perfect and simple leg prosthesis not requiring any electrical input and sensing elements. After many trials and failures, he finally succeeds to produce and try out the first working model.
The film delves not only into the physical context of Ariel's personal struggle and aspirations, but also ventures into the world of his dreams in almost a metaphysical manner. It examines Ariel's invisible inner energy and force through his imagination and internal synbols. After quite a few years, his struggle, inventiveness, dreams and perseverance bring Ariel to the point when he finally walks.
Since the film presents several sequences of Ariel's dreams, to a certain degree the division between the reality and his inner world of the imaginary symbology looses a definitive edge. Because of that, it is hard to fully grasp as what is actually taking place at the very end of the film. This is due especially to the fact that the scene captures, unbeknown to the viewer, some very unusual circumstances of a solar eclipse. It is also filmed on top of a hill or a mountain with a labyrinth-like design on the ground made of rocks. In addition, huge dark clouds roll rapidly over the terrain with what appears to be an unrealistic speed. All of this causes the scene to take on an unreal sense, as if inside an Ariel's dream sequence. Consequently, when Ariel is shown to be actually walking amongst many stomping dances, it tends to be interpreted as part of his dream.
It was only after the film's projection when the director of the film Laura Bari explained to the audience the real circumstances of the filming, that it became clear this was a real sequence, and the ambiguity was dissolved. But Lora Bari would not be present after each screening of her film to explain this to the audience. So the ending might be the film's weak point. Many spectators might walk out of the cinema without knowing what a real accomplishment had just been shown on the screen since they might even assume the ending was simply a dream and somehow artistically contrived and enhanced purely for the film's art sake. Yet Ariel's accomplishment of taking those steps was so real and so magnificent that the ending should not have had any ambiguity about it. The film could have continued for just a little bit longer to make it completely clear to every viewer that yes, indeed, Ariel had succeeded!
In case the film has an ending which is not crystal-clear because of Ariel's ensuing difficulties and struggles, this type of thinking is not valid since his future problems could have been made into a subject of a follow-up film. Yet Ariel's accomplishment in this film to take those steps was so great that it should have been made and honoured to its fullest as a perfectly clear reality, without any possible doubts in any spectator's head.
Since the film presents several sequences of Ariel's dreams, to a certain degree the division between the reality and his inner world of the imaginary symbology looses a definitive edge. Because of that, it is hard to fully grasp as what is actually taking place at the very end of the film. This is due especially to the fact that the scene captures, unbeknown to the viewer, some very unusual circumstances of a solar eclipse. It is also filmed on top of a hill or a mountain with a labyrinth-like design on the ground made of rocks. In addition, huge dark clouds roll rapidly over the terrain with what appears to be an unrealistic speed. All of this causes the scene to take on an unreal sense, as if inside an Ariel's dream sequence. Consequently, when Ariel is shown to be actually walking amongst many stomping dances, it tends to be interpreted as part of his dream.
It was only after the film's projection when the director of the film Laura Bari explained to the audience the real circumstances of the filming, that it became clear this was a real sequence, and the ambiguity was dissolved. But Lora Bari would not be present after each screening of her film to explain this to the audience. So the ending might be the film's weak point. Many spectators might walk out of the cinema without knowing what a real accomplishment had just been shown on the screen since they might even assume the ending was simply a dream and somehow artistically contrived and enhanced purely for the film's art sake. Yet Ariel's accomplishment of taking those steps was so real and so magnificent that the ending should not have had any ambiguity about it. The film could have continued for just a little bit longer to make it completely clear to every viewer that yes, indeed, Ariel had succeeded!
In case the film has an ending which is not crystal-clear because of Ariel's ensuing difficulties and struggles, this type of thinking is not valid since his future problems could have been made into a subject of a follow-up film. Yet Ariel's accomplishment in this film to take those steps was so great that it should have been made and honoured to its fullest as a perfectly clear reality, without any possible doubts in any spectator's head.
Film's Trailer:
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