"Film is hard to explain because it is so easy to understand"

-Christian Metz (film theorist)

Banksy

One of my favourite artists at the moment..

Strange Lights

                    
  - An experimental documentary short by Joe King and Rosie Pedlow (2010)

 For a quick 30sec clip of it:
http://vimeo.com/14732196

The title 'Strange Lights' refers to the natural phenomena of a meteor shower in 2010. The soundtrack used is a recording of American soldiers at a nearby airbase nearly thirty years previously as they view a similar occasion, the incident at the time created rumours and conspiracy theories of aliens and UFOs.
I think the directors' aims were to create mystery and encourage the viewers curiosity at such an unusual and beautiful occurrence. I really enjoyed watching the film, mainly for its aesthetics. The various shots of nature look amazingly beautiful and I found the combination of this with the mysterious themes of UFOs particularly pleasing.
It was incredibly successful in dealing with its subject matter as it offered no real answers to what the viewer was watching and i think ambiguity was one of its main aims.
The film uses time lapses of the nigths sky and long exposures, theres also a beautiful shot merging two skies together, all of these techniques give it a particularly atmospheric tone.
Much of the film was shot at a campsite and many of the flashes of lights are probably just the movement of cars and various other lights (though i suspect a lot of them have been added in during the edit) which i personally think could be a metaphor for how alien human beings are to the planet, and that we as humans are strange little lights zipping through the beautiful nature that surrounds us, and in the grand scheme of things, each one of us is only here for a very brief flash of time. However, considering how mysterious and ambiguous the film is, my metaphor could be way off..