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★★★
Directed by: Maciek Kaliski
Filmmaker Maciek Kaliski has put together footage that was filmed over a period of approximately twenty five years in order to create his experimental short film Strange, Is This World or Dziwny, Jest Ten Swiat as that is the original title.
The film is basically made out of video recordings of various individuals and locations. For instance there is footage of a priest conducting a ceremony in a church, in front of a large crowd. There is old footage of what appears to be a family spending time in their garden. A man is seen holding a camera and filming himself in the mirror. There is a shot of clouds, probably filmed from the window of a plane. There are shots looking up at the sky. There is a dog running in the snow. There is footage of a street light at night-time.
What Kaliski intended to deliver with this project seems to be open to interpretation. Every footage gives the impression that it is unrelated with the rest. Or maybe they are all related. As the title suggests, the world is complicated. It is filled with different people engaging in different activities. It is also filled with the activities of nature, the way the waves in the ocean and the clouds in the sky are constantly moving. No matter how different activities are, they are still activites. And all activities make up life and life is always moving. And from this perspective, all the people, the dog, the ocean, the sky and the street light are related because they all exist in the same world. They are very different from one another, but at the same time they are similar because they coexist. It is strange world indeed.
There are beautiful scenes in this feature that are worth pointing out. When the priest is seen reciting a prayer, the film cuts to a shot of an ocean with waves moving in slow motion and the priest's voice continues as voice-over. There are also shots looking up at the sky, where the clouds are moving at fast motion. And there is a dog running in slow motion while snow is lightly falling. All these sequences are very well structured and they add great qualities to this piece of work.
As mentioned above the type of experience that Strange, Is This World will offer will depend on the viewer's perspective. However it will most likely be an experience worth having.
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