Sovereign of Oneself

“my discovery of tarkovsky’s first film was like a miracle. suddenly, i found myself standing at the door of a room the keys of which had, until then, never been given to me. it was a room i had always wanted to enter and where he was moving freely and fully at ease.”

- ingmar bergman

the words of ingmar bergman ideally capture what i had experienced after seeing the films of andrey tarkovsky in cinema. i was overcome by the sensation that my eyes seemed to have truly opened for the first time. i had an instant of clarity, a moment of epiphany, which made me come to the realisation that the purest art form that was most organic to me was moving image. seeing his films at the ideal timing and setting had made a significant impact on my identity as an aspiring artist. i recognised then that the presence of sound was to me the essence of moving image.

the intention of my short experimental film was to capture the resonance of monastic life. immersed in the contemplative rhythm of an isolated christian monastery in the mountains of georgia, i awoke before dawn, witnessed prayers three times a day, and allowed each act to unfold with reflective intention. the prayers, recited in ancient georgian, lasted for hours. their meaning was beyond my comprehension, yet the separation refined the experience, transforming the tangible into a space where abstraction became a form of transcendence.

the act of filming itself became meditative. working with 16mm required patience and precision that defined the experience in its entirety, setting the camera on a tripod, measuring the light with a meter, adjusting exposure and focus manually, and loading and unloading film in complete obscurity. each gesture required attention and care, each shot a ritual within the greater rhythm of the day. the work unfolded amid snow and storm, where endurance and concentration became extensions of the devotion that compelled the prayers themselves.

andrei tarkovsky gave profound significance to soundscapes immersed in his creations, as he considered that the organisation of sounds and noises could convey the essence of a filmic sequence. i was influenced by the methodologies of the use of manipulated sound incorperated in the cinema of andrei tarkovsky to create a meditative and introspective work that would reflect my personal experience in the monastery. the viewer must allow their conscious mind to relinquish control in order to form an intuitive connection and meaning to the film.