"The
Oracle"
(USA. 1993; 70:00) Antero Alli.
Set
in Port Townsend, San Francisco, and the "bardo
terrains of the soul realm," this promising
70-minute debut feature (shot in Hi-8 and 3/4"
video and Super 8 film) is a visionary exploration
of an elderly bedridden man's interior journey toward
death and beyond. It's also a sometimes humorous,
sometimes heartrending portrayal of his family's
changing perceptions of the process of death.
Grandpa (Art Janelle),
whose wife died six months earlier, has been asking
questions in his sleep. As his daughter Kathryn
(Marzee Crum) says to Sarah (Amanda Shaw),
the on-call nurse, "He's usually the last one
to ask anyone anything. He's always the one with
the answers." But Grandpa is in a different
terrain now, and his granddaughter Ariadne (Kathryn
Rice) seems to understand better than the grownups
around her. "He's pretending to be sick,"
she says. "He's not sick, just dying."
This is confirmed when, shifting to Grandpa's dreamscape,
we discover that Ariadne is guiding him through
a series of stations to a mysterious nomad woman
(Camille Hildebrandt) who will, in turn, lead
him to a deity called Rocketman. In the process
he comes to know compassion, humor, and freedom.
While this may sound ludicrous, Alli's visual realization
of these terrains is nearly spellbinding. His use
of James Koehnline's colorful bardo collage art
and an expressive manipulation of picture and sound
(including slow motion, posterization, and color
tinting) provide a hopeful sense of wonder while
still respecting the mystery.
Back
in the waking world, Grandpa's estranged son Brandon
(Joel Gilman) has, at Kathryn's request, finally
decided to come home. His arrival provides for a
poetically pure moment of transcendent reconciliation
that is priceless. It also provides possible answers
to Grandpa's key questions: "Where do the things
in dreams go? Do they pass to the dreams of others?
And does the father who lives in your dreams die
again when you awaken?" Throughout, Alli makes
effective use of poet Pablo Neruda's "Book
of Questions," which provides Grandpa's sometimes
enigmatic, sometimes penetrating sonorous chant.
While "The Oracle" suffers slightly
from some tight performances and some loose editing,
this is still one work that resonates meaningfully
long after you've left the theater.
--
Paul
Goetz
for
The Washington Free Press, Oct. 1993
MOVIE LINK, CAST & CREW, SYNOPSIS
---> MOVIE LINK: Click above image to watch entire film
The Cast and Crew
Featuring ART JANETTE, KATHRYN RICE, MARZEE CRUM,
CAMILLE HILDEBRANDT,
JOEL GILMAN, AMANDA SHAW,
BRADY LEET, CYNTHIA STEINER, BEN RYAN, KIA SIAN.
Soundtrack by Sylvi Alli and others.
Based on a story by
Camille Hildebrandt and Antero
Alli.
With Pablo Neruda's
"Book of Questions" (William O'Daly, trans.)
used by
kind
permission of Copper Canyon Press, Port Townsend WA
Cinematography, screenplay,
editing & direction by Antero Alli
Produced by ParaTheatrical ReSearch and Vertical Pool Productions.
SYNOPSIS
"The Oracle" (1993; 60:00) An ancestral drama. On the final day in the life of an elderly patriarch (ART JANETTE) he lapses into an intermittent coma and e talks in his sleep. When momentarily awakened, he calls out for his estranged son Brandon (JOEL GILMAN) who lives a thousand miles away. During his sleeping episodes, his granddaughter Ariadne (KATHRYN RICE) appears in the psychic landscape of his dreams as a guide while the words he mutters in his sleep are pure poetry (from "The Book of Questions" by Pablo Neruda). These poetic mutterings disturbs his daughter Katherine (MARZEE CRUM) while fascinating the on-site nurse (AMANDA SHAW) tending his bedside. Meanwhile, Brandon journeys home and finds himself at the center of an ancient ritual of ancestral healing.
The Rocketman peers out the top window of the Dream Tower
Antero
Alli, filmography