This project has been over a year in the making, beginning with a short story I wrote with the same name. It’s actually quite possible that the short story is better than the film, but if you want to decide for yourself, I’ve attached it to the end of this write-up.
So this film faced all sorts of issues, most of which only revealed themselves far after it was possible to do anything about them. The initial filming went fine, which was all of the flashback scenes which compromise the majority of the film. However, I used an old MiniDV camcorder which ended up being a terrible choice. I needed to digitize the tape, and looking online it seemed the easiest option was to buy an old MacBook with a Firewire port, and a cable with an adapter. However when I received the MacBook, it had no charger. So I bought one on Facebook marketplace which turned out to be the wrong one. And then I simply ran out of time, and left for most of a year.
When I finally came back to Boulder, I resumed work by buying the correct charger… only to find out that the MacBook was too slow anyways. So I found a different solution which proved to be much easier, buying a Firewire card and sticking it directly in the computer. Problem solved. However, upon actually digitalizing the footage I now had new problems. There were some shots that were entirely missing from the river scene, and others only had one option for me to work with. The lead actress, Zoe had also cut her hair and I looked fairly different myself, so I had to work with what I had. I was initially very distraught and almost ready to give up on the film, but I decided to push through and at the very least complete it.
By the time I shot the fire footage, I knew I wanted to at least record some more footage with the camcorder, but it began having more issues, meaning only two of the shots were usable. However this project needed to be finished sooner or later, so I felt that I ought to finish it with what I had and see what I could do. It actually turned out rather well, albeit with some notable flaws, but I’m overall very happy with the result.
Here’s the short story that I wrote the script from:
Summertime Lament
I’m overcome again with that feeling I can’t describe. The best I can describe it is my mind desperately clutching at something that has long since disappeared from my body. The closest thing I can relate it to is a sense of loss. I wish to recall the memory it hints at with all my being, pulling at the fragments in mind to reveal the whole, but success is a greater pain than failure. I sit by myself, watching a fire crackle in the late evening blanket of summer. Yet the heat of the flames proves to be too much, and I turn my face away. With the motion of my head, the memory that was pulling at me comes rushing back in full.
Summer. It was summer. I sat on a bench in a pedestrian area, where boutique stores lined the sides of the path, offering up window displays full of extravagantly priced wares, the kind only affordable to the least discerning buyers. Many people walked past, occasionally creeping into a store with wide eyes and tentative feet. I waited for them to emerge some ten minutes later with the air of someone who has just spent their time drooling over things they’ll never own, wishing they were someone else, and who deep down knows they are wasting away, yet believe that to be the only option. I was one of those people just minutes before now, but my current state of lounging on the bench afforded me a sort of haughty separation. I could dismiss these sunburnt faces with slightly parted, almost profane lips as belonging to a different class of struggle than my own. Even still, at this time I had an eagerness for companionship, so I studied each face carefully as it passed me by. If someone ever met my gaze I would hold it, expressionless. Everyone looked away after a second, but I always continued to watch them until they left my view.
That was, until I saw her. She sat against the wall, under the shadow of an overhang protruding from far above. She, like myself, was occupied with nothing but the watching of the passerby. I studied her complexion. A pale, slender face was marked in two places: her brow, and her mouth. From both some great violence seemed to arise, the dark furrow between her eyes and the tightly pressed line of her lips, barely escaping a scowl. The rest of her face disagreed with and almost seemed to temper that violence, her eyes entertaining a weary, smug boredom which her hands mimicked, resting by her side. Her posture was slack yet still offensive, seemingly injected with a performatively casual quality. It was then that she turned to me, and with her eyes on mine I saw I had been wrong. It was not boredom in her eyes and hands, it was a total unrelenting loneliness not unlike my own. I still hold this image of her face close to me, and this brief immense moment before it was broken is how I will always remember her.
Then, I looked away. I told myself later there was some sort of flash, the brilliant glint of a passerby’s watch, or perhaps the sound of someone shouting in the distance that had called my attention—but I know those are only idle lies, that I had really looked away because the look in her eyes, the self-accusing violence had been too crippling, the heat of her stare too intense. I looked away for only a moment, but by the time I looked back she was gone.
I likely would have thought the encounter nothing significant and forgotten it within the day if not for what happened later. I was walking home, across a bridge which led over a river, when a pale white caught in the corner of my eye. It was the face of a girl who lay in the river, partially obscured by the grasses which rose from the flowing water. Her cold accusatory eyes stared at me above a mouth which was slightly parted revealing the hint of a tongue in its last attempt to tell a story, and to her forehead her hair was matted in twining, sinuous strands. Now I knew our briefly shared companionship had brought me into something greater, something to which there was no answer. A sound left my lips, involuntarily, a whisper carved in the wind,
“Why?”
I often return to that moment of brief contact, dream of the “what ifs” that abounded from that moment night after night; what if I had not looked away, what if I had held on to that solidarity, what if I changed her from an unknown into a friend. I spin a wild tale in my head, and it usually goes something like this. All that follows is of course pure speculation that provides me with little comfort, but it’s the little there is available. I cannot resist.
After some time of simply looking at each other, reassuring ourselves that an understanding is reached, she turns with the certainty I will follow, and she’s correct. She weaves between people and pedestrians and gardens while I trail slightly behind, following in the space she leaves. Soon enough the crowd thins out and it’s just us on the street. Then I catch up alongside her, and we walk like that until we come to the bridge where I saw her last. We make our way down to the water and sit side by side, not wanting to break the beauty of our silence. Sometimes I imagine us throwing stones into the water, watching them disappear beneath the surface of the water, vanish into the modeled shadow of the light streaming through the trees. Eventually I grow impatient, and say only a single word, the same word I had spoken before to the same girl at the same spot, only now hoping for an answer. However, this is where my dream falls apart.
Her mouth moves to answer me, forming words but no sound is heard. Those words were lost forever with her death, and I can never reclaim them. I don’t know what she’s saying, or if it matters, but I study her mouth anyways. She gazes out into the flowing water as she speaks, eyes tracing the ridges of the glassy water which sparkles in the afternoon. Her eyes shine with the same light as the river, the same unknown as the night sky, the same sadness as a sunset, but slowly that all falls away and she stops speaking. She turns her head to me, and I see only a fragment of the previous dizzying beauty remains. In its place is a cruel, repulsive shroud. I believe I saw it when we first saw each other, and that’s what caused me to look away. I want to turn my head now to escape this dreadful reality but I can’t, I won’t let myself. We stay like that for a long while, looking at each other. This time she breaks first, looking back at the stream. Then with a silent, mutual agreement, we get up, and make our way back to the path. Our feet lead us to the bridge, where we walk side by side until we reach the middle. She turns, and goes to the railing. I continue down the path. I don’t look back. There’s no need. I know what follows. The sky burns orange as the sun meets its end, sinking low behind the mountains. Oranges cascade against reds and yellows, and I remember I was watching flames.
Wood burns, but never completely. Logs remain in a way intact, even as darkened, charred hunks. My earlier feeling is still there. It, like wood, retains its shape, even under the attack of fire. I pour cool water over the last, weary flames, extinguishing them. A plume of smoke rises into the sky. I spot a piece of charcoal that’s remained intact, like a small stone. I grab it from the firepit, and crush it in my hand. I open my hand, and blow away the dust. Everything is quiet.