BLUE HOUR
2023
Short Film, 2023, 14'35''
Writer/Director: Simone Einfalt
Producer: Mark Gillham
Do you want to come on an adventure with me?
- What adventure?
A precious old memory leads quiet Johnny on an expressive journey across the heartland of Dartmoor to discover a mysterious phenomenon called the Blue Hour.
Fragments of a folk tune accompany him as he starts a reenacted exploration of ancient paths, and secret letterboxing sites, winding through the gnarly oaks of Wistman’s Wood. Within the wild domain's myriad of primal textures and intricate sounds, Johnny gradually eases into a series of volatile flashbacks, doubting the existence of the "place where time stands still and all your worries disappear."
In this race against time and haunting thoughts, we dive deep into a troubled man's attempt to reconnect with his inner child to rescue the memories of a beloved one from fading away.
A story of roaming freely, the momentariness of time, and a son's boundless love for his mother.
In my garden grew plenty of thyme,
it would flourish by night and by day.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
Inspired by the idea of a perfectly quiet and blissful moment in the rural night known as the “Blue Hour” as Eric Rohmer envisioned in his 'Four Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle' (1987), a young man commits to an introspective journey across the heartland of Dartmoor to unravel this mysterious phenomenon. As his mother had been diagnosed with a form of Parkinson's and dementia, Johnny involuntarily observes the slow disintegration of her former self. We go on this journey with this struggling individual, as he discovers old memories along the way, revealing themselves as vague flashbacks. One of our core themes shall be the fragmentedness of memory and the fear of them disappearing. I'm most intrigued by the ways in which perception and especially volatile memories can be phenomenologically depicted in film. So I introduced experimental and analogue elements such as overlay textures, Super 8 footage and composer Mara Simpson's sampling sounds of our wild tracks to equip this film with a unique set of subjective qualities.
Blue Hour contains a wealth of references to local Devon heritage such as letterboxing and the old folk tune "Flowers and Weeds" which has been used as our theme song to underline how something precious can unexpectedly be taken away ("In my garden grew plenty of Thyme, it would flourish by night and by day...").
This film shall raise awareness for individuals dealing with anticipatory grief and the challenges of neurodegenerative illnesses. The role of a close relative as carer within a family setting is often overlooked as a family loses its foundation when one of its solid rocks drifts away.
The grief is here processed through a psychogeographic treatment within the outdoors that we connect to myriads of collective and individual memories. With Dartmoor's "right to roam" nowadays being substantially threatened by private landowners' attempt to restrict access, the notion of walking and taking intimate ownership of these vast natural worlds becomes more and more relevant.