Samantha Casella’s short visual poetry film titled To a God Unknown is a spiritual journey that speaks to the bewilderments of modern day society. This beautiful and awesome short is infused with poetic verses and passages from the works of Sergei Yesenin, Arthur Rimbaud and John Steinbeck. The film was completed in January of 2020, and it has a run-time of approximately 9 minutes. The completion date of the film serves as a precursor of what is to come, setting up the dystopian atmosphere we now engage in with the onslaught the virus, and natural disasters have brought on to our species at large.
The verses carefully distilled over the visuals speak of mother nature’s freedom from human violence, of people in search for a truth beyond the shallow halls of urbanity, of love that possesses like a plague. The colours of the film are dark, with highlights of red, orange, and grey to help establish an autumn mood that renders itself fitting for the themes on hand. Strong imagery, of dolls that cry and of blood that seeps, of a clock burning to essentialize that time is a “matrix” of human life in the world, annihilated in affiliation with that which is divine.
The film comes in three chapters, each with a take of their own in exploring existential conundrums which plague our world today. Massimiliano Lazzaretti and Tatiana Mele’s sound design work perfectly to add to the divine sensory experience of this film. Soothing harmonies and minimal but impactful effects run through the three chapters, connecting the atmospheres and themes together. Three languages of French, Russian, and English narrate the surrealist drama, giving this film a diverse worldliness that speak to the human core. The frames are sharp and saturated, surrealist imagery and hyper-realism run affront the visuals that resonate like stuff of dreams and nightmares, of thoughts hidden deep within the layers of the human mind, beyond our control.
The film starts with n quote from the New Testament, from the Gospel of Luke’s ‘Warnings and Encouragements’—“Even the hairs of your head are all numbered” (Luke 12:7). The film itself can be interpreted to revolve around the fate of hypocrisy and its eventual revelation in the face of divinity and fate. With the brilliant cinematography of Frank Hoffman and the editing of Trevor Bishop, alongside powerful visual effects, Casella is able to provoke audiences into contemplating the essence of human brutality against nature, the hypocrisy of human violence inflicted upon the very thing that our survival depends upon. How long shall the earth endure, before it sets up a scheme to dethrone a kingdom set on hypocrisy? Such a question that arises from the film represents questions we may ask ourselves on a daily basis during these stressful times, where illness and natural disasters seem to be slaughtering humanity piece by piece. “
“Your Smile is Snowing in My Heart” is the title of the first chapter, derived from the works of 20th century Russian poet, Sergei Yesenin. It is a great choice for the poetry works to distort a worldly love, divine intervention, and a dystopian and shadowy intimacy that trembles upon the borders of love and death. Contrasting and paradoxical imagery fills the screen—a grain of white fluid slowly turning red, of a mass bird migration, of birds being shot, of fish choking, of a noose and a moon, a clock without hands—Casella can make poetry of film, a feat many attempt but rarely truly accomplish.
With a passage from John Steinbeck’s novel titled “To a God Unknown”, presumably the main inspiration for the film’s title, chapter two begins. A sacrifice for the land is the theme, for in the beginning we are told “There’s a limit, the earth can not feed more than many”. Here is a man in constant awe of that which is divine and a mystery to us all, but not to the subject who believes, and to the subject who will sacrifice himself for the land of spirits and ghosts to heal, and for others to be fed perhaps. Eery is the reference to the book, which bases the character in California, a land of promise suffering this very day this review is written, by wildfires unseen before and drought that seems to be ever-lasting.
Chapter three commences with wondrous waves of oceans, and a painting of the fair Ophelia, a clock burning on the shore, a lighthouse in the middle of the ocean. “The Clock is Still” by Arthur Rimbaud is the poetry on display. The glaring image of a hangman standing beside nooses in the dark, of silence and of death, perhaps a vision of hell. Is it political? Perhaps. Is it poetic? Definitely.
To a God Unknown serves as a dare I say prophetic surrealist drama depicting the very days we wrestle with today. It is everything a great film touches upon without directly speaking to it, politics, art, God, humanity, love and death. To a God Unknown is brilliant, To a God Unknown is beautiful and horrific.
By: Darida Rose
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