The basic story: A woman (Galia Barkol) writes something, but is
obviously not content with it, so she screws up sheet after sheet of
paper. Then she walks up to a church, but is followed by a harlequin
(Lucas Rainey), who tries to stay out of her sight while coming closer and
closer. When she spots him though, the two kiss passionately. The woman
sits down on a park bench and eats an apple. Suddenly another woman
(Kimberly Freeman) sits down right besides her and takes a bite from a
similar apple almost in unison. When she notices the woman noticing her,
she hastily leaves. Finally, the woman goes to an apartment, where she's
greeted by a guy (Brian de la Cruz) with open arms. There are four
stories here, told by four different writers and their composers.
- Justin & Jay: The woman is asked by someone she trusts to write
down all her negative experiences every day at the same timee ... but
only when she leaves her home again can she even begin to grasp
whether this has actually made her any better ...
- Yael & Izzy: The woman is preparing for her last day on earth,
as her mind is to be transplanted.
- Chris & Barbara: The woman wants to commit suicide, but can't
find the perfect wording for her suicide note. And a surreal dream
doesn't exactly make things better.
- Roy: The woman and a psychiatrist (voiced by Jeremiah Kipp) discuss
the weird dream the woman has been having.
4 Themes on a Variation is a rather fascinating experimental
short, as it is not based on a script but rather a series of dreamlike
episodes connected by nothing but the lead actress, and four writers and
their respective composers (in three cases anyways) were asked to fill the
little (non-)story with words and music - and the outcomes couldn't be
more different, ranging from psychoanalysis to science fiction, fom
fighting depression to suicidal tendencies, which each segment in the
process becoming a movie all of its own despite using the same pictures,
edited the very same way. I can't but repeat myself, really fascinating!
|