SEEKER
‘Seeker’ is visual artist Alice Instone’s second short film. ‘Is there a cure for loneliness?’ asks the Seeker, who goes on a journey through a strange universe of animal and spirits guides, receiving various answers and making friends along the way. The characters are all played by Instone, her immediate family and close friends, a continuation of her philosophy of using what’s around her. The Blue Lady’s Star Song and the End Song are both written and performed by Instone.
The world conjured by ‘Seeker’ is one of shared experience, creativity, togetherness; the anti-venoms for isolation. ‘Seeker’ re-iterates the message of Instone’s first film (‘Oracle’, which won Best Fantasy at Cannes Short Film Festival), which is to enjoy the pleasure of being ourselves, to be kinder to ourselves and each other, to embrace the gorgeousness of the world (because in the words of the film ‘beauty will save the world’).
The magic cards the Seeker consults at the outset contain the archetypes that act as guides later on and coded visual messages are scattered throughout; snakes and ladders, fire and water, mirrors, gateways and gatekeepers, destruction and rebirth, books, the cosmos. Saturated colour and the use of masks, costumes and various sculptural creatures and backdrops call to mind folk traditions (strongly echoed by the soundtrack which includes traditional, devotional or ecstatic and chamber music). These also nod to Instone’s background as a painter and sculptor.
Instone has previously made a number of text works and during the film animated titles (some of which she also sings) punctuate the action like religious or political banners and add to the sense of time passing and a journey or quest. Elemental images of rippling water, flames and the moon and stars turning emphasise this. Strongly reminiscent of early cinema, in particular silent films, Seeker embraces a low key playful humour: the characters have a home-spun imperfection. Deliberately low-fi techniques, such as stop-frame animation, and quite literally smoke and mirrors, are combined with cinematic craft that celebrates the life affirming joy of storytelling over information. This mixture of old and new points to the timeless rituals and questions that sprout from the origins of who we are.
‘Seeker’ brings to the fore our humanity and the things that we deeply crave and which unite us (‘music, hope, beauty, mystery, love’). We are still who we always were at our core (‘secret knowledge we all share’). The film offers the metaphysical tenderness and reassurance we all crave; addressing our fears about the world, ourselves, and the hereafter. In the words of the film ‘turn and face the darkness, in order to see the light’.