Like I noted with my
piece on Dan Sallitt’s The Unspeakable Act, I consider Gina Telaroli
enough of an acquaintance that I can’t completely write about her film without
proper disclosure. Gina is one of NYC’s most dedicated repertory film viewers,
so we do end up seeing a number of the same films and chatting before and
after. The two of us are also contributing on a project to be announced at a
later date.
Traveling Light deserves
to be seen on the big screen, so if you are in New York, I highly recommend
attending one
of the three screenings at Anthology Film Archives this weekend (and pair
it with one
of the great train films Gina has programmed alongside). For those outside
of New York, the film will stream on Lumiere
for a month starting on November 15th. It’s only an hour, and very
much worth your time.
Gina Telaroli’s Traveling
Light strikes me as a work essentially about loss, and one that operates
unlike any other film set on a train—its visual language and rhythms are highly
unique (certainly falling under the category of “experimental” but never didactically
so).1 The film is almost like a collection of postcards, filled with
moments of reflection on not only how we view the world, but also how we view each
other. It’s also a film that stirs emotions hard to explain. The fact that
Telaroli’s initial plan for the film went haywire (described her in my
interview with her) and the final work is still something of rapturous transfixion,
should speak no doubt to the conviction she has when wielding cinema.
Opening with the passing of two trains that feels less like
a moment of everyday banality and more like an excerpt from the “Beyond
Jupiter” section of 2001, Traveling Light travels on an Amtrak
from New York to Pittsburgh. But it’s not a film pushing forward, but seemingly
always looking back and what is disappearing, of space and time falling behind.
The world is always passing by in windows, the shadows overtaking the frame,
and trees pass by via the reflection in a laptop. Shots from the window at the
end of the train are framed in a way to resemble silent film shots, literally
sending us back in time. The human moments convey this as well, as Telaroli
gives each member of her cast a moment: a conversation outside the train is
just barely audible, a reunited couple only spotted for a moment. A woman
drinks coffee and then vanishes before our eyes with a flicker. Another writes
in a diary – we can’t read the writing but can observe the gestures in the
hand. As the snow becomes more dense and the sun drops, the camera continually
searches for light, any moment to connect with what once was. During the final
shot, as the camera stays stranded in the station, and the light of the train
that took us to this destination disappears before our eyes, I felt a strange
sadness over my connection, my need, for light, even the artificial one that
reminded me the art form I claim so dearly only exists through such means.
But within this sadness, I’m also reminded of how beautiful
the images Telaroli finds are inspiring in their beauty to remind me that even
if these things are disappearing. Each shot has a soft focus feel that feels
gently touching and filled with passion for both the world around them and the
people in it. During a moment late in the film, the camera captures ice forming
on the windows, and the red light that illuminates it. “That looks awesome!” The
camera operator notes, before he and Telaroli, voices just audible, decide to
hold the shot. It’s this belief in the image that fuels this gentle gesture to
our changing world, and the hope that even in transitions, something of beauty
may emerge.
1Although not a direct influence, it has shades
of some of the scenes set around Vienna in Jem Cohen’s Museum Hours, though the “theory” behind such images is never
stated in Telaroli’s film.
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