Time is an abstract concept that we can experience it but can hardly tell. Time is something invisible but when it meets lenses, what can we see?
Ten Minutes older trumpet/ cello is a collection of 15 directors' work of their description of the concept of time. In this collection, Wim Wenders, Wener Herzog and Volker Schleondoff use their own contemplation and lives to explain the question “what is time”.
Wim Wenders signed himself down in this work as usual, the remarkable elements in this work is still highways, music,men and cars. The story he is telling is about a man who got heart attack during the driving. The plot is quiet simple but the way Wenders tells the story is quiet interesting.
The story start with a trouble, and the aim is quiet clear—find the hospital. Then the obstacles come—no one can help, and the man knows he can do nothing but go to the hospital himself.When he finally reaches the hospital, the story was finished successfully. Wenders gets rid of the trouble of the impossibility to tell a big story in this way---tell a tiny story which has a simple plot.
However, the development of the story is quiet cool and out of control.“Here we go”, he said, then the adventure began with Eels's song Souljacker part1. Here we have to spend some words to talk about this song.
Souljacker is a song mixed with anger and Rock, which led people into something special, free and crazy. The scenery we see in the film changed with the melody, it changed the color and the sight is distorted. It looks like Dali's pictures. When you see the windmills, you will feel like stuck into something –That's time. Time becomes slower like what Einstein described in the theory of relativity——the song changes into another Eels song Woman driving, man sleeping, a soft song describes man's dream .The song creates a warm and peaceful atmosphere like going back to home or being shined by the grace of the Lord. And then, the car stops, and he gets his second life.
Something special in this part is that Wenders visualizes time, and man's struggle in time. He described the color and the amazing distortion of time from the sight of an patient. From my own angle, Wenders marked himself significantly with Highway and Rock'n roll music.
Werner Herzog also be himself in this collection. Documentary is what he is famous for so that's the only documentary in this collection. Herzog never do a simple documentary which shoot from a journalist angle---for assure the balance and fact, it avoids any point of view. Herzog made his documentary into an “Author documentary” which show his own thought of world and concept.
He choose a disappearing tribe to represent time. How they found the tribe, what it was like and how it looks like now and future, that's the simple clue of this documentary. The tribe hid in the forest and they even killed white people who live in their domain.
Something unbelievable is that this tribe accepted the crew as well as accepted the gift and medical care. Soon they were changed dramatically. They dressed like us--- do not be naked any more, they went to the big cities, watched TV, even had sex with two white ladies. They accepted those new things without any pain. However, those “gift” killed the tribe---The dream of the new generation is to be a good citizen of a big city, and they prefer to speak Portuguese. Language is the last part of a culture. In the Franco-Prussian War, Arthas was banned from French---culture hegemony started from killing a language—However, the tribe threw their language away voluntarily. The new time swallowed old time softly, old things died like being suffocated in a sweet dream.
However, they are scarred by the past---they still can't understand what's time. They do not need the clock and can't understand it at all. What is time? Why time is so important. In a modern society, punctual is a virtue. But this virtue do not have a long history in our society: Time was emphasized during the Industrial Revolution, to ensure the efficiency. Efficiency is a race with time, the more product you make in certain time, the more profit you gain. But in a tribe, the only thing they need to know is “the face of sun and moon.” The standard of efficiency in the tribe is whether you can feed yourself and your family. Compared to them, “What you need is less than what you expect” is a maxim to our lives.
The inability of understanding time demonstrate that time is an artificial concept. People always need something to locate themselves, we made meridian and parallel to locate ourselves and we need time to fix us on the time dimensionality. What a pity, we are resist of the freedom of floating in nihility.
The final film is from Volk Schlondolf. Schlondolf is a director who can shoot something gigantic, and his work has strong insinuate of time. Like the Tin Drum, he use the eyes of a boy who resist to grow up to observe an epoch of time and human nature. He used a lot of metaphors to build up his own concept.
The clip Enlightenment is an unique work because of the following reasons:
1: View angle and the movement of camera.
2: The setting of monologue.
3: The setting of the climax.
The director set the the camera as the eyes of an mosquito. Mosquito is something almost invisible. Also, it is an outsider which hold no power and no status to things on air. But it's free, when it travels from river side to the forest. Though it's a view sight from an insect, it seems that it choose what to see and whom to observe.
Because the viewer is something that can fly, so the camera twist in angles that out of rules. It just move freely, but steady. It makes the viewer get some power to chose the scenery. The firm shoot seems to add some spiritual to the viewer—it is not an ephemeral insect which has no intelligence. It is subjective but with firm will. At that moment, it seems that the viewer is not a mosquito any more, it's the God. However, God never interfere people's affair, it just observe and let things happen.
The coordination of movement and the special optic angle model the attitude
The setting of the monologue is the other “outsider”. The voice has no control of the happening issue, also, it comes from a ancient famous bishop called Augustinus who wrote a book called Confession. Confession is a book that Augustinus confessed himself to the Lord. Augustinus' thought of time is very philosophic. He talks about his confusion of the malposition feeling of time that caused by the unequality between the physical and incorporeal experience of time. And the monologue also cause the malposition feeling of the image and the voice. The magical feeling of “malposition” makes the concept of time subliming and solid.
The dramatical ending form two death, one is the man in the film and the other is the death of the “observer”, the mosquito. The man's death seems to prove the fragile of the concept of time. You can never “occupy” time. You have no power on time like you have no power to the sudden death. Though Herzog shows that time is an artificial concept, however, Schleondoff used his lenses to show his rejection. From Schleondoff's view, the essence of time is abstract and transeunt, only the concept of time is man made. It seems a power that force history flows, society changes and our lives pass.
At the end of the film, The dimension malposition was discarded. “You my God brings me enlightenment, you will be my lantern.I'll come toward your light.You, my God will make my darkness bright, and brighter and brighter...” There comes to a grinding halt, with the death of the witness.
The end of our time is death. But our time died, the time of others will continue. “There will be no present if there isn't something exist.” said Augustinus. Our deaths cause us lose the present of our time. But we changed into the past time of others.
When you question about which one of the three directors describe time best.I think it's hard to tell. They showed their own point of view and their feature and character. Wenders succeeded in visualizing time, Herzog did a good job in showing the relationship between primitive society and modern society (including comparing the state of people living under two conditions of society. ) Also he showed his own concept that time is an artificial concept. Schleondoff created a malposition scene by using some common material. He fixed the material together and creating the feeling of “uncomfortable”. He created an atmosphere for people to get involve into his speculation.
From my own point of view, Schloendoff did the best job to describe the abstract concept. He did this short film in an philosophic way, that is excavating essence out of huge chaos. Also, he demised the right of speculating and describing time to audience.----“I do confess my lord that I don't yet know what time is.” Schloendoff is the only director who tell audience “I don't know yet.” That's really brave. What schloendoff showed is Time in philosophy which create a good chain to tie the past, present and future. The other two directors though showed themselves and their own concept, they just stop at a stage which is some place farer from the surface of an issue or object, they didn't actually touched the confusion of time. They answer the question in an easier way which is finding something which had experienced or was experiencing the confusion or the problem of time to show what time is. They didn't face the question itself. So I think their work still has some more way to go.
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