LAST THINGS AT DOCAVIV

 If you follow the work of the Chicago-based documentarist Deborah Stratman, you know it’s not so much about stories as much as landscapes and systems. Her body of work has spanned multiple media, including sculpture, photography, drawing, and audio. The movie Last Things, which she is bringing to this edition of DocAviv, with the support of the Camões Institute of Languageand Culture and the Portuguese Embassy in Tel Aviv, is no exception. The interesting part of this movie is that it manages to intertwine the literary, philosophical, and scientific voice over—fragments from a 19th-century sci-fi novella, Clarice Lispector’s The Hour of the Star, Marcia Bjørnerud’s thoughts on time literacy, and Donna Haraway’s cyber-feminism—with sound and imagery, creating a multifaceted experience.

 

Last Things aims to reflect on the effects of time as the planet undergoes dramatic changes, encompassing themes of death, rebirth, and evolutionary patterns. It’s an experimental work that incorporates scientific and sometimes fanciful voice-overs in French and English (Portuguese is missing), along with microscopic geometric images from the lab. It makes for quite a visual experience, as it presents shining crystalline structures that resemble the geometric, fractal patterns found in evolutionary branches.

 

The film's runtime is a concise 50 minutes which makes it more of a short feature, allowing audiences to immerse themselves in its hypnotic and topographic journey without ever becoming boring.

 

For the festival audience I advise sitting back, absorbing the visuals and sounds, and finding comfort in this film’s transient duration despite its slow pace.

 

Last Things last screening at DocAviv will be on Sunday, May 14th at Cinematheque 2.