A Child Goes Burying Dead Insects

Another film I have not seen before. I discovered its soundtrack when it was released on the wonderful Belgian label Ultra Eczema. According to the label’s promo blurb, “the soundtrack is driven by a beautiful Japanese folk loop, blown over by a HNAS type of sound collage, primitive in its set up, and sliced open by Rei's own angel type of vocals, like a creepy lullaby.” I couldn’t describe it better myself! The film, structured around a repeated sequence of a young girl burying dead insects in a forest, concerns death, ritual, and lamenting loss. Hayama notes that the burying of dead insects was just one of the ceremonies she developed as a child, which functioned for her to find a sense of order in a chaotic world. In the film, however, we see this ritual repeated over and over. The Single-8 film stock is degraded through exposure and manipulation time and again until the deterioration of the image drains all colour from the screen. As the film progresses, the cycle becomes more abstract and illegible. The cycles of life and death, of nature and rituals are found in the materiality of the film itself, suggestive of a blurred line between animals and humans, man and technology. It was previously shown at 25 FPS, but it’s in dire need of a comeback! (Stoffel Debuysere)