Her Words

By Juan Francisco Pablo

The representation of the cinema within the cinema itself entails a challenge that is sometimes more complex, but in the end it is a joy to remember through the screen that a film is being enjoyed with all its artifices. Even more interesting is to think about the internal work of the filmmaker, which led to that reference. The author impregnates in his creation what he supposes is the cinema with each piece of cinematographic and film material or, what he believes is the cinema until the moment of making it. It is important to emphasize: an artist’s knowledge, mentality and interests change over time, the conflicts of today are not those of a few years ago and so will the perception of his art. In the commitment of the Spanish director Laida Lertxundi in “Words, Planets” (2018), an experimental short film, she is trying to satisfy her cinematic interests, such as the arrival of a new and unexpected stage in her life. Between perception, procreation and realization, life and cinema, there is no difference between one and the other, and in the end neither nor the other.

This would be a work about sensation and completely puts reasoning aside, if logic can be fitted to an area so directed to the stylization of its represented object as is cinema. A prevailing question to answer arises:  How did we come to sense about Words, Planets?  The sensory journey with Lertxundi takes place through three paths that lead to a single place at the end, life as a window to cinema.

Perception

While the montage by convention gives a sense of continuity, following between one image and another. For this short film it is more of a fortuitous jump, it does not represent, it does not continue, it does not even contrast, rather it travels nervously searching here and there, through the sea of images that we call memories, it is the extremely complex disorderly swaying of our mind bringing little by little something we already did, trying to reaffirm it. The perceptive mind taking from one place and omitting others, playing with the order and organicity of space to encode its world. At one point we see a woman staring at the camera, then a different woman crosses a bench, ending with the foreground of some lemons in hand. Each film piece brings us closer to the sensory delight of Lertxundi making her cinema. It is definitely a building euphoria.

Procreation 

Lertxundi evokes the birth of two new beings important to her; her movie and her newborn baby. Although some of us could denote the feeling of chaos and grief both newborns cause her due to lack of coherence between scenes, that does not prevent us from appreciating the affection she has for them, even though she succeeds, making constant reference to both events. First to her cinema within the cinema; at different moments of the film, Lertxundi working on the raw material, roughly ripping the tapes and then projecting it, and some characters watching the results filmed on screen. Second, the baby, with images that bring peace and tenderness, they show the little creature being pampered, transporting to the viewer some bittersweet mixture of sensations; immense tenderness and fear of the near future.

Realization

We must make it clear; the director knows better than we do. There are no borders with cinema; as long as it can be thought, it can be filmed. She strongly adheres to this axiom and convinced of this; she launches into making this short film with the purpose of sharing who she is at that specific moment of her life. When I was watching this short film I noticed some statements that it marked and I embarked like the director trying to give some cohesion to her ideas, because I also believe that there is nothing cinema does not contain. It is Lertxundi’s genuine desire to explore life through realization and it is my desire to explore that fruit through my writing. I consider it is the final objective; her words created my planet.

Words, Planets

(Spain, 2018)

Cinematography and directed by: Laida Lertxundi

Starring: Muhe Chen, Victor Artiga Rodriguez

Running time: 11 minutes

Distributed by: MUBI