A haunting epitaph of maternal and filial love structured around a series of biographical vignettes that document his mother’s life. The passing of time and distance are narrated by voice...
A haunting epitaph of maternal and filial love structured around a series of biographical vignettes that document his mother’s life. The passing of time and distance are narrated by voice recordings she left on the artist’s answering machine in the mid 90's and early 2000's as she struggled with addiction, poverty and chronic illnesses. She died by suicide in 2003. Like most of Ericsson's work, this film is constructed using a combination of archival and originally shot material.
“It’s weird to make a film with no living performers. It complicates the whole thing. And no script really. It had to be lived and the only character I wanted to portray, my mother, was gone. All I had were pictures, some 8mm footage and voice recordings. I’d been making art “about her” for years, I put that in quotes because really what I had been making art about was me, or me losing her. I wanted the film to be different, it’s still me, and me losing her, because it will all always be that, but the voice recordings - which were always the hardest thing to make art of - so artless, so real - film was the only answer. The voice over is a well known thing to use in a film, so letting her recorded voice messages drive the narrative it inevitably became more her than anything else I’ve done, beside the letters, which is also her voice, and also powerfully artless, powerfully her.” - TR Ericsson