Swimming Exhausted

Rating: Null/10 (23 October 2008)

(this is a replacement comment. The original was not as rich as the film deserves.)
Sometimes a film has no narrative whatever, and instead relies on the tone it sets. And sometimes it works for me. Not frequently, but in this case it worked for me. I have to admit that this is just the sort of thing I reject because it has no direct narrative. But in my case, the careful setting up of a situation that has romantic tendrils sets up a whole set of internal narratives that serves just as well. Better even.
The tone is a carefully balanced set of desires and hesitations from both sides of the urge ocean. Its a tone poem in wanting to belong, colored by the search for music, ephemeral enough to entice our own unsettled desires lose.
I want to recommend this because it worked for me. It still does as I remember it a week later. It will open your unresolved desires.
Why it works, is because it shifts the foundation from narrative to place. Like Shakespeare's lone experiment in this technique (Pericles), the serial components of search for place are substituted for the discovery of story. Why this is such an extraordinary experiment is because it conflates place with music. I think you have to be of a fresher generation than mine to make this leap, but it seems so natural that I suppose most viewers won't notice it.
So instead of mapping the typical search for self, or search for a love (usually the same) with some fabricated story as usual, we get mapped to a world of sonic architecture where character, song and place meld. Where instead of the ideal romance, the cinematic value is the ideal song. That's why we have the otherwise inexplicable lovemaking session on tape in a recording studio.
When some novel experiment like this comes along that enhances the romantic narrative, it is cause for celebration. When it works, it is cause for a parade. I am sorry I did not celebrate this sufficiently in my original comment. I have discovered that it touched me rather deeply.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.