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Life After Love (Zachary Epcar, 2018)
🕑 Added 2018-10-26 23:00:12 +0000 UTC
The scene, as far as I can tell, is a parking lot beneath a BART station at twilight, a kind of stationary urban ark that can easily be mistaken for a ferry. The sun glints off a field of cars, their distinctive colors blanched out by the evening half-light. Epcar's camerawork slides and skids along the surface of things, tracing the language of automotive design -- a less sexualized, more matter-of-fact version of Kenneth Anger or Ed Ruscha. People are in their vehicles relaxing. They eat salad. They vape. They can lock all their doors, of course. It's the only way to live.
The camera tracks upward in middle close-up to show what's hanging from rearview mirrors. Sun glints off the chasis. Then with an edit, all goes dark, and the lights inside a car flick on and off. Time is plastic, a tool for organizing light rather than activity. We see a dog closed up inside a car. This isn't right. The poor thing is licking the window.
The field of vision is compromised, the scratches on various dirty panes of auto glass making contact with the flares of available light, resulting in a dispersed California haze. We see a woman alone in her car. She is listening to a self-help tape. It advises her to stick her hand in the glove compartment as far as it will go, essentially becoming one with the car. Say it with me: "I don't need you anymore."
Epcar's camera moves around this space as though it were on rollers, controlled like an automatic car window. The filmmaker sees with windshield eyes. His name is an anagram for A CA CAR ZEPHYR. I don't know what sort of fuel this guy is running on, but I hope he never runs out.
