A sea with soul
Everything is invented, there is nothing new under the sun but people insist on existing. If all this were true we should reflect on our presence in this world and instead, if our lives are in danger we are able to transgress any moral and ethical notion to save it. We live for not contributing anything, would be the official discourse, therefore, to annoy. But no, life is full of new people, new experiences and insights that go beyond the mass consumer society and strawberry gum culture chewed for hours with no substance or flavor. Ben Rivers is part of the further on, therefore, a little bit closer. Far from greenish brown and near vital fluids, his films are a door opened and closed at the same time.
Two years at the sea is the title he presents at the current L’Alternativa 2012 Festival de Cinema Independent de Barcelona. A man called Jake lives in the middle of the forest. He goes out walking whatever the weather, and takes naps in the misty fields and woods. He builds a raft to spend time sitting on a loch. He lives frugally in all seasons, passing the time doing strange projects, living the radical dream he had as a younger man, a dream he spent two years at sea to realise. That film was awarded with the FIPRESCI Prize at the Venice Film Festival 2011. It reminds me the films Honor de cavalleria (2006) and El cant dels ocells (2008), being closer in the spirit to the first one but more similar in a format sense to the second one because of the black and white photography. But it’s just a reminiscence. Ben Rivers is a deep and strong creative force and Two years at the sea is a new proof of it. An artisanal body for a beautiful imaginary expressed through the youth dream of a man that gives his life all the possible senses.
Text by Juan Carlos Romero
Ben Rivers website www.benrivers.com
Still from the film Two years at the sea by Ben Rivers
Courtesy of L'Alternativa Festival de Cinema Independent de Barcelona
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