From the archive
Anatomy of yearning
Longing is more than a wish. It is a space between possibilities and loss, between who we are and what is missing. Dreams are frequently the only place where the unattainable comes to life, though never completely. Longing can be a powerful inspiration for diverse artistic forms due to its strong emotional charge and the invigorating yet frustrating desire for fulfilment. The films in this year’s Slovenian Film Archive selection range from experimental visions to teenage stories in which dreams are not a consolation but an ignition for longing. The bigger the dreams, the bigger the longing becomes. The films linked by this theme address not only what we want but mainly how longing shapes how we sense, experience, and see the world.
The experimental film Dreams, with its montage of abstract images and symbols, embodies an interplay of dreams and longing. The stories of First Love and Orpheus and Eurydice serve as love parables. In First Love the protagonists know nothing of disappointment, because they are discovering love for the first time. Meanwhile, Orpheus and Eurydice is a narrative of love that has seen loss. Longing transforms into a quest for something that was lost but has perhaps never existed.
The visualisation of a folk song in the animation Oh Grow, Grow shows how innocent love can evolve into dark longing, possibly into a form of despair and the need for confirmation. In the film Everybody Was Coming, sexual desire is expressed with humour and playfulness in the realm masturbation and imagination.
In Young Lions and Fried Brain of Pupilija Ferkeverk, dreams become tools of resistance. The film Young Lions uses a car theft story to reveal youthful longing for freedom and thrill. In Fried Brain of Pupilija Ferkeverk, the resistance manifests as a desire for freedom outside of a system, ideology, authority and even one’s own body.
Director’s Cut is the one that presents creativity as a form of longing, since even when he runs out of film, the director keeps filming, while in The Fantastic Ballad we long for what we haven’t experienced.
The selected films reveal longing as a multi-layered, often painful, but invaluable aspect of human experience. The stories surpass the limitations of film by delivering a common experience that unites us with its burning essence as inspiration.
Matej Bandelj, Špela Pipan
Dreams
Vasko Pregelj, Yugoslavia, experimental, 1966, 7'
Oh Grow, Grow
Tone Rački, Yugoslavia, animation, experimental, 1970, 3'
First Love
Jože Pogačnik, Yugoslavia, fiction, 1976, 10'
Young Lions
Jože Bevc, Yugoslavia, fiction, 1961, 11'
Orpheus and Eurydice
Milčinski Matija, Yugoslavia, fiction, 1968, 10'
Everybody Was Coming
Tone Rački, Yugoslavia, animation, experimental, 1971, 2'
Fantastic Ballad
Boštjan Hladnik, Yugoslavia, animation, experimental, 1957, 11'
Director’s Cut
Boris Petkovič, Slovenia, fiction, 2001, 2'
The Gratinated Brains of Pupilija Ferkeverk
Karpo Godina, Yugoslavia, experimental, 1970, 12’