Two Videos By Penny Lane
Embedded above is a short animated film — made up mostly of text — by filmmaker Penny Lane called She used to see him most weekends. As indicated by the title, it’s a sad little film about the long-lasting effect of divorce on a child.
What I particularly enjoy about this short are the subtle shifts from third-person to first-person, as if the narrator is trying to remain emotionally distant from the subject matter, but it’s clearly still a painful subject, which accounts for the momentary lapses of personal expression. Also, a slight warning if you watch: The film is, for the most part, completely silent, except for part of song that comes in somewhere around the middle.
I’m not sure how I stumbled onto Lane’s work, but her name popped up somewhere during my Internet travels recently and I found her personal website. So far, I’ve only watched the two videos embedded in this post, but I really dug them immediately. Her film list on her site lists 11 short films for viewing and links to two longer form documentaries, Sittin’ on a Million and The Abortion Diaries.
Most of her work seem to have some sort of documentary angle to them. Or, like for the above film, some of it is first-person, but is it a true story by Lane or all a complete fiction? I enjoy a good film where you’re never quite sure about that. It’s a question I wouldn’t even think to ask because the film is better off with not knowing.
Below I’ve embedded the very short Kitsch Is a Beautiful Lie, which runs less than two minutes. The film has a documentary element: The audio track is a recording made at a pro-choice rally. But the video is of … well, that’s kind of giving it away. A blurry spinning image comes into focus is all I’ll say.
And if you want to check out more of Penny Lane’s films, visit either her official site or her channel on Blip.TV, where these videos are housed.
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