One of the silent millions
Talent Press Guadalajara participant Luis Vaca reviews Eryk Rocha's debut film PASSERBY.
Eryk Rocha's debut feature PASSERBY
PASSERBY shows us Exposito’s life; a 65 year-old pensioned man who has an awkward relationship with his urban environment. Through an interesting film exercise, the individual condition of millions of people who are consumed by large cities is explored.
This phenomenon was named “intrahistory” by Miguel de Unamuno: “Journals do not say a thing about the silent life of millions of people with no stories who at every hour and everywhere around the globe, wake up as the sun rises and go to their fields to continue with their eternal, dark and silent pieces of work, just as sub-oceanic madrepores lay the foundations on which the islands of history are based”. This film is about a character that could seem dull for many people, but he is a perfect example of millions of passers-by who “suffer” the course of time, walking aimlessly until their last day on earth.
Albert Laffay said: “cinema tells and represents at the same time, contrary to the world that just is by itself”. In this sense, we find in PASSERBY a representation of the world through images and above all through sounds, which play a vital role in the film; they act as a sound memory of the streets where the soundtrack is composed by the main character’s experiences and memories; Expedito calms down his own emotions through music and sounds, and establishes relationships with people through them as well. In the film it is shown that Exposito loathes machinery noise, which represents the hostile and monotonous existence of the main character. The black and grey color scheme offers a deeper reflection about the daily living in a large metropolis.
