Jean-Julien Pous

Video artist

Drift Away

Short Film, 5'44, 2009

A woman is lost in the streets of Hong Kong.

“A Slow Glide Through Misery’s Homeless Mind : Drift Away is a beautiful, but sadly melancholic 4-minute short film. During its course, a gracious and ethereal young woman slowly glides silently and all alone through the busily teeming streets of Hong Kong. During the earliest part of the film, it’s somewhat difficult to discern exactly what’s going on in this little film, or even what the movie’s theme might be, except possibly a visual rendering of the emotional deadness of anomie and anhedonia in contemporary urban life. The attractive young woman’s eyes acutely capture everything around her, but only the movie’s camera can catch her own eyes. Sadly, it’s probably true that only when you’re really able to lose yourself in something or someone else, only then will you finally become capable of an emotional investment in yourself, another person and/or the world around you. Lacking that, the despairing message for people left with a desolately barren life in the midst of the intensely seething modern world is something like: “Pour your misery down, pour your misery down on me.”

- Patrick Zimmerman










Screenings


Finisterra Arrábida Film Art & Tourism Festival
Kunsthaus Tacheles, Berlin, Germany
Culture Unplugged, Spirit Enlightened, We Speak Here
15 May 2010, NERVO International Video Art Screening, Alcobaça Youth Week 2010, Portugal




Credits


Written & Directed by: Jean-Julien Pous
Starring: Teresa Sheung Yan
Producer: Sophia Shek
Music : Climax Golden Twins