Ben's Movies

Erzen’s Story

Erzen made this movie in 2007 after a three day workshop in San Francisco. This is his story of what it means to be a young person with cancer. It has a nice instrumental in the background and it has several images of his life without cancer. He stated that he had no photos of his time with cancer and I think it is good as it keeps the focus on his life and not a disease. I don’t know if he was looking for certain imagery by walking left to right but that meant to me it was a journey to a place he had not been before. It reminded me of the Lord of the Rings and how the Fellowship, and later Frodo and Sam, were always filmed going from left to right or west to east. The opening and closing verse did a good job of setting the tone and then concluding the story. I think I would have not read the verse and instead let the viewer read it, perhaps with some sound in the back. The change of using a negative version of the video during the discussion of cancer and combined with slowing the video gave a great effect and made me think of the shadow world or the line between life and death. The length of the video (3 minutes) was good because it told the story but allowed you to also stay engaged the entire time.

 

My First Time… Being me

Nancy Lajeunesse made this video for a Northern Ontario film festival in 2010. The story begins with a discussion of her first flight in January 2006. Her physical and emotional changes led to her being sent to a hospital and led to her meeting her first love, who was also a patient. She had not considered herself a lesbian but once she had learned to accept that she learned that she was very happy. She concluded by including both happy and sad firsts that occurred that year but it was a very happy story in the end. With the transitions from photo to photo and the addition of video helped tell the story in a seamless fashion. I noticed that at first the video was dark and a bit confused but once she began to accept the new person in her life the film was brighter and clear. There were no sounds except for the voice over until the end song and it was fitting since it was so happy. This movie was shorter at just over 2 minutes but it was very effective. I know it caused me to really consider what sort of life struggle she was experiencing that led to her parents sending her to the hospital and how long it must have taken to get the courage to tell her parents that she was a lesbian.