The idea of illness, the ones that plague the body and the mind, is the central theme of the short film ‘Bleeding’ premiered at the Senate Hall on September 27.
The story of an artist struggling to decipher his empathy for models, which he feels and refuses to feel at different times, ‘Bleeding’ seems to have borrowed heavily from the idiom of fine art. Yet, the frames cobble up an aesthetic rendering of the artist’s paradoxical fixation with the muse.
Aromal T, who has scripted and directed the 20-minute film, says the basic plot was inspired by Irving Stone’s biographical novel ‘Lust for Life’ (1934) based on the life of Vincent van Gogh.
“The book describes the origins of famous Van Gogh paintings like ‘Sunflowers’. He is said to have been a painter who shared no emotional rapport with his models. But the question of doing true justice to the subject of interest without being aware of his/her state of mind has come up for discussion time and again. It is this dilemma that the artist, who is the central character of the movie, is trying to resolve,” he says.
The movie opens with a conversation that the audience overhear while the screen shows a black out. Two voices, male and female, are heard discussing the paintings of expressionist painter Jackson Pollock. At the end of the dialogue, the female voice quips - “Do you love me”. The man, possibly the artist, replies, “I only love Van Gogh.” The voiceover fades out with the woman’s dejected afterthought on the inescapable congruence of his beliefs with those of his object of worship.
The narrative flips back and forth in time as the story meanders through the many relationships that the artist forges with his models, some emotionally loaded and others purged of sentiments. The film ends with his resolve to make peace with his conscience by gifting the portraits he did to the models who inspired each one.
Though the film argues that that the protagonist/the artist is afflicted by the physical illness of internal hemorrhage, the complex working of his mind forces it to be read as a psychological malady. It has tried to discuss the effect of empathy or the lack of it on art works.
Picasso’s artistic partnership with his muse Dora and and the import that Raja Ravi Varma’s romantic involvements had on his paintings are examined in the film. Another interesting digression is a reflection on the ‘passion and romance’ that illumine the paintings of Amedeo Modigliani, a contemporary and rival of Pablo Picasso.
The film is produced under the banner of city-based production house Carbon Factory. Jean Christopher has wielded the camera and Santhosh G Nair has played the role of the artist.
The paintings used in the film were done by artist Shine Varambilan. The cast included Aparna S Mohan, Remya Raj, Aswathy Vijayan, Njum and others.
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