Between Entrance and Exit
(Short film in black and white)
For most of the time which I spent as a choreographer, I was
preoccupied with one phenomenon: The coexistence of a man and
a woman with all the physical, mental or emotional implications.
In this short film I want to use much of the accumulated
knowledge which I have collected over many years in my
private and professional life. Although I will be writing
partly about my personal experiences, the film itself will
have no autobiographic character. It will be purely a product
of our fantasy.
In this film, which I like to classify as a surreal and slightly
metaphysical tragicomedy, I wish to create a situation in which
we feel that one character only exists in the imagination of
the other...
Each one of the protagonists lives in a world of fantasy,
in which all objects have different meanings from the meanings
they were designed for. Maybe a somewhat accessible exercise in
‘Ontology’ - (the science of existence)...
The story takes place in the time of ‘Belle Époque’, for which
there are several reasons: I remember very vividly the time when
I was growing up as a young boy in Prague. Our apartment was
overfilled with heavy dark furniture and oriental carpets from
the 19th century. This quite surreal environment impressed me
deeply and gave me much material for my ‘mind travels’ and for
fantasy...
Being born in this room and having lived there for the first
20 years of my life, this space shaped my emotional and visual
perception of the microcosmos of my young life.
In this room I stood, walked, sat or lied down. Sometimes on
my back, watching the light, cast by the passing trams, making
bizarre patterns on the ceiling - sometimes on my side staring
at the black grand piano, which seemed to be lying on its side
- or on my stomach, only to see darkness...
In this space, I struggled with my adolescence trying to conquer
my demons and build my imaginary ‘air castles’. In these years I
was introduced to the work of two artists, who created worlds
which enchanted me totally.
One - the photographer Josef Sudek, who was still alive then,
and lived around the corner from our house. The other - the
writer Franz Kafka.
The worlds these two men created, took possession of me and
didn’t let go until this very day.
The photographer created works of great symbolism and lyricism
- his sensitive observation of life and objects around him taught
us, that these objects do not only represent their functionality,
but that they change through the eye of the artist into a magical
entity - their meaning and their ‘raison d’être’ is suddenly new
and very different...
The writer Franz Kafka: with his painstaking description and
examination of our physical, mental and emotional microcosmos,
he opened the doors to the universe. With his black humor, he
tilted the world onto its side, and with diabolic pleasure, he
watched how we will cope with it...
These two men probably saw life as a continuous ‘stage rehearsal’,
moving between the wings, spot-lights, and trap-doors. They are
also prototypes of people, who are unable to share their lives
with anybody else. All their attempts to do so are condemned to
failure at the very outset.
From very different perspectives, they both tried to manifest
themselves in their art, rather then in their being. What they
produced became more important then themselves. They both created
their fictional partners accompanying them from ‘Entrance to Exit’.
This ‘partner’ is their work and their art. In fact they created
this ‘monster’ out of control...
- - -
I have written the previous chapter in order to reveal some of
the backgrounds, which were on my mind, when I first thought of
making this film.
- - -
The two characters inhabiting the same space, will feel more like
being in two separate rooms. The labyrinth-like complexity of the
space has an essential influence on their behavior, and on their
physical, mental and emotional state and on the psychology of their
relationship...
As much as this description leads us to think of serious or tragic
outcome - my feeling is that this set-up provides us with a natural
environment for very funny encounters and for ‘black comedy’.
All rooms have several things in common:
They all have floors to walk on...
They all have walls to bang your head on...
They all have ceilings to stare at...
They all have entrances and exits, for us to come and go...
They are spaces in which we try to make some kind of sense of our
existence...
They are home to objects to which we attache our lives...
They are spaces filled with dreams, despair, sexuality and comedy...
They are transition rooms for generations leaving their marks and
spirit behind...
They are the guardians of our existence for the time given to us...
Jiří Kylián, October 2011
