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untangling the meaning behind "confluence..."
Consumed by the beats and rhythms of our own established narratives, many forget that other spiralling storylines navigate and weave their way through these daily routines.
“confluence…” captures distant snapshots of three individuals experiences on one dreary day. Their relationships to one another - disconnected, until a train carriage unifies these fleeting souls.
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Influenced by Michael Ondaatje’s notions that our individual micro-narratives might at first glance seem unique and disjointed, but upon stepping back and altering one’s perspective, we realise that we all instead contribute to a much larger social meta-narrative.
This film served as an experimentation in cinematography, taking a simple idea of disjointed stories and fusing them under the guise of aesthetic composition.
Edward Hopper’s beautiful depictions of urban loneliness and despair underpinned the visual style of the film. His paintings of lone figures in impersonal spaces, with hollowed and dark eyes gazing from windows or down at their drinks creates this immense sensation of isolation whilst surrounded by bustling cityscapes.
Complementary alienating greens and mellow oranges defined the film’s overall visual aesthetic, simulating the intrinsic isolation felt within populated landscapes.
To further distance the audience and place them as the passive observer, the action was framed in quadrants instead of thirds, subverting the dominant cinematic styles of contemporary cinema. The immense amount of negative space that encompasses the main characters reminds viewers of the limitless expanse of our daily environments and how we might only ever pay attention to our own minute concerns.
“confluence…” is designed to be watched on three different screens at once, these simultaneous narratives conjoining at the nightfall of a long day. Inadvertently, each character is helped by the other, one fleeting comment or gesture leaving a small yet indelible mark.
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One girl's phone call reconnects a man with his daughter, a boy with his mother, and in return she is shown compassion from an unlikely figure.
Like a moth fluttering away. It might not have meant to land where it did. But the dust it leaves behind will settle and stay.
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