Creative

Memory Walk from Ilona Brooks on Vimeo.

Critical Reflection

The most significant links between this clip and memory are displayed through the images used and how they form together to recreate my personal memory. I have purposely used still images rather than moving ones because they create a fragmented, jumpy journey, reflecting the disjointed process of remembering and also the impossibility to return to the past and accurately recreate an experience. I have also made some of the images blurred as this further reinforces the uncertainty associated with retelling a memory and the accuracy of events being conveyed. The use of still images rather than moving ones also plays homage to Chris Marker’s film La Jetée (1962). Both La Jetée and my clip act as mediators between film and photography, as the images are static but experienced as moving. As Réda Bensmaïa states “[t]he spectator must imagine movement, must add a supplement of movement and spatial continuity where there is only a succession of images that are frozen, as if suspended in time” (1990:139). This use of still images results in the formation of a desire for the image to come to life, but like memory, even representations cannot.

I have kept the images in colour, because colour is a distinctive signifier of the “real” and “true” and I wanted to portray how the clip is demonstrating a re-enactment of a memory and it is not the exact thing. I have imposed black and white cut outs onto some of the images; these represent the things that I vividly remember from the walk; the old fashioned pram, the Sky Tower- signifying I was going in the right direction, and my Dad’s car. I have chosen to have these in black and white because black and white acts as a typical memory signifier and “history is represented by the black-and-white photographic or cinematic image” (Marita Sturken, 1996:1).

The visual clues that the images demonstrate have complex relationships with the topics and theories surrounding memory and its representation in films. Because of this I have chosen to keep the audio simple, and have simply laid a song over the images. The song I have chosen is You’re Lost Little Girl by The Doors because it operates as an ironic commentary to what is happening to the ‘character’ and situation in the clip. As the song is in second person it acts as a removed narrative and speaks directly to me, enabling the retrieval of the memory I personally hold. The song also allows for an audience who are removed from the situation, and who have no personal association with the events depicted in the images, to gain a further narrative than what the images display.

I have used both the text and the map as forms to further develop the notion of the clip being a re-enactment the past and how media can extend understandings. The text begins in acting as a prompt, aiding a flashback and then simply narrates the story. Although the way in which I have used the maps does not act as a memory signifier it does add to the narrative of the clip and make the journey more visual. In doing so audiences can grasp a deeper understanding of the distance travelled and in turn, connect it with their own personal memories of walking as a child and how distance is often warped. The maps along with the text, images and audio document the journey, re-enacting the both the memory and other features that could not be observed at the time.

Reference List

Bensmaïa, Réda. "From the Photogram to the Pictogram: On Chris Marker's La Jetée." Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture, and Media Studies 8, no. 3 24 (1990): 139.
Sturken, Marita. "The Politics of Video Memory: Electronic Erasures and Inscriptions." In Resolutions: Contemporary Video Practices, edited by Michael Renov and Erika Suderburg. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996.