The
Drowning Room
(Reynold Reynolds and Patrick Jolley)
Synopsis:
"A
sequence of domestic vignettes from the
sunken suburbs. In the house, the stagnant
atmosphere has slowly thickened to liquid.
The inhabitants try to carry on as normal
but beyond the borders of asphyxiation,
communication is limited and expression
difficult. Filmed entirely underwater
in a submerged house to create an atmosphere
unlike any other film.”- Reynold
Reynolds and Patrick Jolley. Shot in East
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
In classic
film melodrama, the characters’
powerful, deep-seated, and usually unacknowledged
emotions are often displaced onto aspects
of the mise-en-scène, not unlike
the condensation and displacement of meaning
that occur with dream symbols and figures
of speech. In Reynold Reynolds and Patrick
Jolley’s black-and-white film
The Drowning Room (An Underwater
Soap Opera) (1999), a seemingly ordinary
family is seen going about its daily business
in a house that is completely filled with
water. The family members, either refusing
to notice this fact or simply taking it
in stride, continue their activities as
best they can: shoveling their fish dinner
into their mouths as tiny food particles
waft around their faces like plankton,
reading waterlogged newspapers, and petting
their suspiciously stiff-limbed cat as
if all this were perfectly normal. They
seem to exist in a state of suspended
animation, perhaps thinking that if they
pretend the water isn’t there, it
won’t drown them. When viewed in
the context of recent global events, the
family’s domestic isolation can
be seen as a metaphor for political isolationism
and a willful disconnection from the events
of the world outside.
The Drowning
Room (10
min. loop. 2000, S8mm)
(Reynold Reynolds
and Patrick Jolley).
A sequence of domestic vignettes from
the sunken suburbs filmed in a submerged
house.
"The
Drowning Room, by Reynold Reynolds
and Patrick Jolley, is a lush fantasy
of underwater life, in which mundane moments
are transformed into dynamic poetry."
- Sundance Film Festival 2000
Credits
Directors: Reynold Reynolds,
Patrick Jolley.
Producers: Reynold Reynolds, Patrick
Jolley.
Cast
in order of appearance:
Heike Bartels.
Clea Van Der Grijn.
Patrick Jolley.
Florian Pariak.
Jane Gang.
Martin Frei.
Kelly Burns.
Tom Green.
D. Alexander Cox.
George Horn.
Production:
Art Buro
Post-production:
Editor: Reynold Reynolds
Harvest Works
Outpost.
Funded
by:
The Arts Counxil of Ireland,
Temple Bar Properties. Dublin.
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