Child based this imagined home movie about the life of Mary and Percy Shelley on the real diaries of Mary and her sister Claire. Together with the factual intertitles and intimate voice-over, her film provides a visual and emotionally original picture of the author of Frankenstein.
Abigail Child uses home-movie aesthetics to reconstruct a life in a time when film still had to be invented. Based on diary notes by Mary Shelley (1797-1851) and her stepsister Claire, she filmed the problems of love, pregnancies, babies who died and the written work of these women, who were very emancipated for their day. Child focuses primarily on Mary's intense love affair with Percy Shelley in the years when she was also writing her classic gothic novel, Frankenstein (1818).
The form of A Shape of Error is playful and adventurous, with split screen shots filled with doublings and mirrors, chronological facts in inter-titles and Mary’s poetic voiceover. For Child, the authenticity of the home video is a way to create intimacy. At the same time, her film is a self-reflective investigation of this authenticity, as she previously did in The Future Is Behind You. A Shape of Error is the first part of a trilogy about women and ideology, in which Shelley's biography tackles Romanticism.
Part 2
Not only does the images have no sound, they also are frequently shot from positions that could have been taken by one of the participants, for instance yourself. As a result the images very strongly resemble a concept known as memory. And indeed, after a while my brain stopped interpreting the images as being generated by film and started to see them as real memories. Memories i couldn't possibly have... unless they came from a previous live, a live i didn't know i had until it was revealed to me by flashbacks from my subconsciousness, flashbacks that seemed to evaporate before i could put a finger on it.
So in the end i did not only re-lived the live of Mary Shelley but in a way i also re-lived a live of my own, a live i didn't know i had. If this is what the Abigail mend with reshaping the way we look at things she did a hell of a job, equaly good and genius as the imagination of her subject.*****
You still have two more chances to see this miracle, don't wait till next live;-)
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Webreview from Erik on 31 January 05:49
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Mark as improper
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This morning i almost killed my alarm to be present at the 10.00 o'clock screening of a shape of error. Being a great lover of Frankenstein i would not forgive myself missing this unique opportunity to find out more about it's creator.
As it turned out only a dozen other viewers showed up to attend this early screening, not a promising beginning. On top, filmdirector Abigail Child claimed that the first half hour could be very overwhelming since we had to reshape our concept of watching to be able to enjoy this movie the fullest. But the reward would be great!
In reality i needed only two minutes to embrace this wonderful movie as one of THE highlights of this years festival. As is turned out Abigail has created a totally unique way of telling her story. The main role is the voice over of Mary Shelly herself which is a delight on its one. " at the time i wasn't in love.....but i was in love with love itself so al i had to do was to find something to love....
With lines like this one doesn't really need anything more and indeed the images shown were mainly illustrational to the voiceover, If the voiceover mentioned a gathering of friends the image shows a group of people, eating, laughing and chatting. But the image itself remains without the usual sound and spoken word. So we can see people talking together but we can't hear them. Boring? Think again.....
end of part 1.
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Webreview from Erik on 31 January 04:44
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Mark as improper
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