Dissent

I am the co-writer, co-producer, and cinematographer of this film.  The film sprang from a writing exercise with the director, Helmut Dosantos.  We chose as our primary source of inspiration the novel “The Judgment”, written by Franz Kafka.

Genre(s): Fiction / Experimental
Sub-Genre: Drama / Noir
Language: English
Nationality: Italy / France / USA
Year of production: 2012
Duration: 35 min
Filming supports: HD – 16 mm, 35 mm
Distribution supports: 35 mm / DCP / HDCAM
Color: Color & B/W
Aspect Ratio: 1, 85:1
Sound Format: Dolby Digital

Synopsis:
Wearied from her wedding dress, Karla plods along the waters of a brackish lagoon and looks at the opposite shore, where a surgeon is numbing with an injection an old man with a haunted laughter. Then, Karla awakens. Edward, Karla’s betrothed, rejoins her in the bathroom, finding her vexed against him. She wants him to tell his father that they have moved up their wedding. As he finally agrees, she screams in horror and backs away. She sees the same old man of her dream, who is behaving as if he were Edward. Yet, her vision reverts back to her fiancé.

Repeated hallucinations force Karla to delve into gloomier delusions as that old man returns, and she finds more and more difficult to determine what is real. Even when Edward goes visit his father, Karla finds herself inexplicably there, and identifies in her fiancé’s father the old man of her dream. She sees Edward trying to tell him about their wedding. But, the father claims he has never heard of anyone named Karla before. What was meant to be a simple announcement turns into a bitter dispute that ends with the father‘s accusation of Edward being the one who, with his projected wedding, profanes the memory of his dead mother and attempts to diminish his life into a marginal existence.

The father’s final condemnation shakes Edward to the point of committing a desperate act. Act of which, Karla will discover its truthfulness at her umpteenth reawakening….

 

 

Dissent from vincenzo mistretta on Vimeo.