Glory at Sea was a very interesting short film in my opinion. At the beginning I had no idea where the story was going but once I saw the abandoned roller coaster (Six Flags) I knew it was set in New Orleans. I love how the film makes a spiritual connection to those that died in Hurricane Katrina while also having a strong enough plot to stand on it's own.
I really liked this film for the symbolism it brings. Even though the film does not reference Hurricane Katrina, it's effects are evident. I really loved the idea of the survivors building makeshift boats and rafts. To me it represents the process of trying to pick up the pieces of their lives and put them back together. Katrina destroyed so many lives and this was the directors way of portraying this.
The short film, Glory at Sea was a very unique and different way to look at the dead. It was very cool how the beginning of the story took place under water which challenged the viewer to figure out what was going on. I did not understand where the story was taken place until I saw all the debris from the hurricane. The director did a great job of showing the emotion and severity of hurricane Katrina.
O....kay, this took some research. I will freely admit: after watching this movie for the first time, I had to swallow my pride and admit that this was above my ability to competently interpret. I liked, I think, whatever the hell it was; its visuals were appealingly cinematic, it knew just how to use its bombastically optimistic score to re-energizing effect... but I really couldn't make heads or tails of it as a whole. It didn't take much prompting to realize that it was invoking Hurricane Katrina, and I believed that the central conflict revolved around not giving into hopelessness in a world that had already had its teeth kicked in, but past that...ya got me. It was time to turn to teh interwebz for help. So, apparently, this is based on the Greek myth of Orpheus--that's who Mister Longhair McDriftwood is an allusion to. That's why the video description is referring to Hades in a story that has a preacher and talks about what is presumably the Christian God; that bit in the description threw me personally for a bit of a loop. Anyway, knowing what source material this was referencing only helped so much; he has power over song (hence the score and him banging on a piano at the end), he can charm all living things (he brought the whole community together), and he was ejected from the Underworld only to try to return to retrieve a lady friend. He's Orpheus; okay, fits. But what about the rest of it? I get the sense that this is trying to say something about the post-Katrina New Orleans community, but the ending really threw me into turmoil over what the resolution really meant. Specifically, what made me kinda squirm with a lack of understanding was the fact that everyone from the boat never made it back to the surface. They found their loved ones! Yay! God helped 'em by sinking their boat conveniently right above where their loved ones were. ...And I kept waiting for them to bring their loved ones back up to the surface with them, but they...never did. The movie abruptly ends with everyone except the preacher (who, I'm sorry, was not very good at reading his lines, whatever the reason) still underwater with whoever they were trying to find. This...really bugs me, because without further context, the easiest logical analogy my mind jumps to is that they *all died*. Like, I want to believe that there's some context I'm missing here, something about the original myth that I'm not getting, or that the loved ones in the ocean aren't really dead but are instead metaphorical of missing survivors that would eventually be reunited despite FEMA's incompetence--I'm really, genuinely hoping that I'm just reading this movie wrong, because the alternative conclusion to come to is such a dark sentiment that I don't want to accuse the film of asserting it. I don't know guys, I'm lost. I've only got so much time to devote to researching for this comment. Maybe someone else here will be able to better understand it; I'd be happy to read that comment.
This a was a good film and I really enjoyed it. I liked the hurricane Katrina reference and it really resonated with me because I went through Katrina living in Mobile and it was rough there. Not nearly as rough as New Orleans of course but I can still remember all of the pictures and news reports from that time. I loved the little Mardi Gras reference they had in the film. This story was very visually appealing and I liked the narration of the story.
This film was really beautiful. I'm personally am not a huge fan of happy endings, but the juxtaposition of despair and jubilation really worked here and it wasn't overdone or schmaltzy at all. The little boy as a narrator worked very well, and I absolutely loved the audio in this film. The moment when the little boy is screaming down the beach while the rest of the town is working on the boat was my favorite scene; it really played into the chaos and anarchy of it all. I felt that this film was very well made, and there was a lot of planning and development that went into it. The set, costume, characterization, I loved it all.
ALthough quite odd and hard to understand, "Glory at Sea" opened my eyes a little more on the subject of Hurricane Katrina. This disaster fell in a point in my life where I was to young to really understand, but old enough to realize something big was going on. The story was told very nicely and I felt very enthralled in the world that the director presented. I loved the darkness of the subject matter and it makes me think more into my own head of the subject. All in all, very entertaining, yet hard to understand short film.
Glory at Sea was a very interesting short film in my opinion. At the beginning I had no idea where the story was going but once I saw the abandoned roller coaster (Six Flags) I knew it was set in New Orleans. I love how the film makes a spiritual connection to those that died in Hurricane Katrina while also having a strong enough plot to stand on it's own.
ReplyDeleteI really liked this film for the symbolism it brings. Even though the film does not reference Hurricane Katrina, it's effects are evident. I really loved the idea of the survivors building makeshift boats and rafts. To me it represents the process of trying to pick up the pieces of their lives and put them back together. Katrina destroyed so many lives and this was the directors way of portraying this.
ReplyDeleteThe short film, Glory at Sea was a very unique and different way to look at the dead. It was very cool how the beginning of the story took place under water which challenged the viewer to figure out what was going on. I did not understand where the story was taken place until I saw all the debris from the hurricane. The director did a great job of showing the emotion and severity of hurricane Katrina.
ReplyDeleteO....kay, this took some research.
ReplyDeleteI will freely admit: after watching this movie for the first time, I had to swallow my pride and admit that this was above my ability to competently interpret. I liked, I think, whatever the hell it was; its visuals were appealingly cinematic, it knew just how to use its bombastically optimistic score to re-energizing effect... but I really couldn't make heads or tails of it as a whole. It didn't take much prompting to realize that it was invoking Hurricane Katrina, and I believed that the central conflict revolved around not giving into hopelessness in a world that had already had its teeth kicked in, but past that...ya got me. It was time to turn to teh interwebz for help.
So, apparently, this is based on the Greek myth of Orpheus--that's who Mister Longhair McDriftwood is an allusion to. That's why the video description is referring to Hades in a story that has a preacher and talks about what is presumably the Christian God; that bit in the description threw me personally for a bit of a loop. Anyway, knowing what source material this was referencing only helped so much; he has power over song (hence the score and him banging on a piano at the end), he can charm all living things (he brought the whole community together), and he was ejected from the Underworld only to try to return to retrieve a lady friend. He's Orpheus; okay, fits. But what about the rest of it? I get the sense that this is trying to say something about the post-Katrina New Orleans community, but the ending really threw me into turmoil over what the resolution really meant. Specifically, what made me kinda squirm with a lack of understanding was the fact that everyone from the boat never made it back to the surface. They found their loved ones! Yay! God helped 'em by sinking their boat conveniently right above where their loved ones were. ...And I kept waiting for them to bring their loved ones back up to the surface with them, but they...never did. The movie abruptly ends with everyone except the preacher (who, I'm sorry, was not very good at reading his lines, whatever the reason) still underwater with whoever they were trying to find. This...really bugs me, because without further context, the easiest logical analogy my mind jumps to is that they *all died*. Like, I want to believe that there's some context I'm missing here, something about the original myth that I'm not getting, or that the loved ones in the ocean aren't really dead but are instead metaphorical of missing survivors that would eventually be reunited despite FEMA's incompetence--I'm really, genuinely hoping that I'm just reading this movie wrong, because the alternative conclusion to come to is such a dark sentiment that I don't want to accuse the film of asserting it.
I don't know guys, I'm lost. I've only got so much time to devote to researching for this comment. Maybe someone else here will be able to better understand it; I'd be happy to read that comment.
--Dan Bryan
DeleteThis a was a good film and I really enjoyed it. I liked the hurricane Katrina reference and it really resonated with me because I went through Katrina living in Mobile and it was rough there. Not nearly as rough as New Orleans of course but I can still remember all of the pictures and news reports from that time. I loved the little Mardi Gras reference they had in the film. This story was very visually appealing and I liked the narration of the story.
ReplyDeleteThis film was really beautiful. I'm personally am not a huge fan of happy endings, but the juxtaposition of despair and jubilation really worked here and it wasn't overdone or schmaltzy at all. The little boy as a narrator worked very well, and I absolutely loved the audio in this film. The moment when the little boy is screaming down the beach while the rest of the town is working on the boat was my favorite scene; it really played into the chaos and anarchy of it all. I felt that this film was very well made, and there was a lot of planning and development that went into it. The set, costume, characterization, I loved it all.
ReplyDeleteALthough quite odd and hard to understand, "Glory at Sea" opened my eyes a little more on the subject of Hurricane Katrina. This disaster fell in a point in my life where I was to young to really understand, but old enough to realize something big was going on. The story was told very nicely and I felt very enthralled in the world that the director presented. I loved the darkness of the subject matter and it makes me think more into my own head of the subject. All in all, very entertaining, yet hard to understand short film.
ReplyDelete