I arrived at the screening in a rush, not knowing where LUX was located. I had high expectations of this exhibition, however, I was guided to a small room with a screen perfect for a 4:3 screen. The film wasn’t 4:3, but 16:9, and sadly the sound system wasn’t ideal either. I assure the reader that I’m not hating on the display for no apparent reason: I’m expressing my pitty towards what could be an amazing exhibition. The film was well filmed and structured, with most of the shots being still and observant, but critical and poetic.
The doc. guides us through two archives, one in Lagos (Nigeria) and the other in Bristol (UK), where the director considers the ‘sonic shadows’ that colonial images continue to generate, despite the disintegration of their memory and their material. Besides this powerful motif, the director lacked a subject. If these archives are considered as the element of exposition, there is, even so, a void with no meaning to cover it. Therefore, Onyeka used sound to solve the problem by creating a surreal narrative that answers the proposed problem: “the impact of colonial images on ex-colonies”. She used fake documentary to help this purpose, mixed with other styles of storytelling such as film-noir and horror, which I believe didn’t help to release the problem, but instead to mystify and ridicule it. I could feel the urge and the clamour for meaning in every moment. I could feel how ambiguous it must have been the writing of this short. It seems that the subject itself died on purpose days before the shooting. Somehow, it feels that this reality belongs on everyone’s minds but not on this short. It seems like the sound is the issue. There is indeed a forced attempt to make it prevail over the image. I couldn’t feel harmony nor any interaction between both departments.
I must recall a brilliant short film about the “ex-tutelados” (the name given to foreign minors living with no parents under the spainsh government’s protection system in Spain) called “No Conozco La Historia del Fuego” (2021) directed by Sara Dominguéz L´opez, Luís Morla and Alberto Ruíz (translation: I don’t know the Story of Fire). In their film, the reality of these kids was exposed in 3 well composed long shots, will little interaction between the characters, momentaneous dialogue, and a beautiful and well-curated sound that cured the life of those infants and gave answers to most of the short’s questions.