The best experimental films are those experimental films that take you on a journey that you won't get in the multiplex or the on the television or, for the most part, even in your daily life.
Jeremiah Kipp's collaboration with The Mandragoras Project is such a film - an original vision so unique that you find yourself at the end of its four-minute running time both mouthing the words "What did I just see?" and "I want to see it again."
The beauty of the film, that might best be described as weaving together film, dance, photography, and human expression, is that Drool is the kind of film that is nearly impossible to absolutely define.
What it means to you it may not mean to be and vice versa. For some, Drool may bring to mind images of childbirth.
For some, sex.
For some, perhaps, even rape or violation.
My guess is that if I were to try to pin down Kipp on just what exactly all of this is supposed to mean that Kipp would simply chuckle to himself toss the question back my way with a "What did it mean to you?"
Then, when I'd left the room he would chuckle.
Utilizing only their bodies to tell the story, Kipp's actors have created a story that is compelling without spoken narrative and involving without definition. While one might say that it seems to represent "stages," one might very well say it doesn't.
Or maybe it does.
Drool's lensing is done in such a way that we focus more on the atmosphere created than the actual images on the screen. The monochrome tones give the film an intimacy that is simultaneously sensual yet intimate. There are moments in the film, seconds really, when this intimacy is interrupted by something jarring and disturbing yet horrifyingly familiar.
It is as if we are looking at life, the creation of it or the birthing of it or the disrupting of it or the destroying of it, but still life.
There's a journey here and it's up to you to decide for yourself what it is.
Conception. Birth.Life.Death. Something else.
Maybe.
© Written by Richard Propes
The Independent Critic
