Fresh from the release of Pentagram Girl (you have watched it, yes?), goodbuddy Bryan Enk has returned to the realm of the cinematic monologue with Beneath the Sea It Sings. And I don't know if it's the Long Island City shoot's proximity to water but the maritime mood is strong in this one (stronger even than in Bryan's previous sea jaunt, The Final Voyage of the Good Ship Demeter). Stories like this seem to hit Bryan every so often, and even his earlier monologue films dodged what is often a stagebound feeling by deploying an effective cinematic counterpoint to keep them engaging, and engrossing. But of course in the end such a story's strength rests on the shoulders of its teller. In Beneath the Sea it Sings, performer Julia Kolinski delivers.
From the start the energy in her expressive eyes gets our attention, and as she obsessively relates the story that she alone has lived to tell, so does the filmmaking accelerate to meet her energy, shifting at the perfect moment to a semi-seasick handheld camera, catching the distortion of reality through digital means. The production design shifts from realistically capturing the sounds around her (footsteps on the deck above, the sea sounds muffled outside the hull) to sliding inside her crystalline perceptions to capture her madness, to the point that we feel mired in the inevitability of her fate. And though the music by Nick Olman comes on too strong too early- one longs to hear the song inside the sea rendered on a hurdy-gurdy, say, or a concertina - it too weaves its own spell as Kolinski's passion and horror rise to match its level, and that song stays in our heads after the curtain falls.
Bryan has unleashed a mess of his movies on YouTube, and I'm glad to see them finding new audiences there. This one will be live there at the end of January, and for the newcomer it's a good place to start with his work, and at a good time: a seabound story for late on a winter night, provoking a dreamy chill.
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