The Time We Killed
A meditation on life, death and a chosen state of solitude.
Original Title: The Time We Killed
Director: Jennifer Todd Reeves
Country of Origin: USA
Language: English
Runtime: 95 min
Tecnology: Video, B&W
Year: 2004
Cast: Susan Arthur, Rainer Dragon, Lisa Jarnot, Valeska Peschke.
More about the plot: Jennifer Todd Reeves’ award-winning experimental feature is a brilliant and gritty visual poem about a New York recluse, Robyn, who grapples with the mental and emotional consequences of her increasing agoraphobia. After a suicide attempt at age seventeen, Robyn incurs a selective amnesia that eliminates painful memories from before the incident. Nonetheless, memories, fantasy, and events from the outside world, including images of the U.S. war in Iraq, invade her consciousness. As Robyn discovers outlets to the outside, she must decide whether to remain within her enclosure or to face a world that is horrible and tragic, but sometimes beautiful. Reeves develops a dazzling grammar to visually distinguish Robyn’s external world from her internal subjective states. Contrasting crisp, black-and-white digital photography with lyrical, optically manipulated 16mm passages, she has created a work both formally inventive and emotionally expressive.