I came across Kim Spurlock after she won the Tisch School of the Arts 'First Run' competition earlier this year with a short version of her thesis project, Down in Number 5.
A Vietnamese-American who grew up in West Virginia, Spurlock frequently draws on this heritage in her quiet, elegiac shorts. My favourite so far is the atmospheric Buou Chieu (Afternoon, 2005). Here, a family flees Saigon in the aftermath of the Vietnam War and ten years later, a lost spirit finds her way back to them. It’s about the bonds that run between the old and the young, the closeness of family and the links we share, even after death.
Afternoon opens with a young girl playing at fishing with her grandfather. They attach paperclips to coloured paper fish and then catch them with rods made of string and magnets. Outside it’s raining, and the shots of the house are close - heavy with the feeling of being indoors all day. A row of incense sticks quiver in the breeze, empty slippers sit waiting in a row and the girl and her sister curl in tight around their mother for an afternoon nap. This opening is one of the truest images of home I’ve seen in a long time – a whole sensory atmosphere is created in just a few short shots – the rain outside, the smell of the incense burning, the quiet neatness of the sideboard, and the warm sleepy feeling in the overhead close-up of the two girls on either side of their mother. Everything is close and slow and tender - the characters even move slowly, as if half awake. The camera is near, but not intrusive, and when the father/grandfather dies, the scene is observed in a single still shot looking down on the daughter from behind as she realizes her father has passed. No frontal shots are needed, all the expression of love and sadness is shown in the way she leans forward to press her face against his. The film is deceptively simple - big ideas are alluded to, while the shots themselves are clean and straightforward.
Fish (2003) also hangs on an intergenerational connection. In this silent black and white film, a young boy wants to rescue a fish from the fish market. He has just enough money, but his mother pulls him away, sending the coin flying. An old man witnesses the boy’s desire, retrieves the coin, and buys the fish. He packs the fish into his briefcase, takes it to the river, and lets it swim free. I’m not sure how long the fish is going to survive the muddy tides of the Hudson, but that’s beside the point. The beauty of the film is in the way the story unfolds shot by shot, without any need for explanation or dialogue.
Spurlock is a wonderful visual storyteller who makes clear shot choices – no shot is superfluous, gratuitous or there just because it looks cool. It's a motion of dissent to make quiet films in this noisy world, and these films are brave and beautiful. I’m looking forward to seeing more.
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