21/02/2025
¡¡No os perdáis las preciosísimas palabras que dedican desde Nevermore Film Festival, donde se proyectará Fallin'!! 😍
I am an avid clock collector. I have hundreds of clocks, some as recent as yesterday and others over a century old. I can honestly state that I love each one equally. Many of the them are cuckoos, especially the Lux Novelty models. Our next film opens with a cuckoo clock, or at least a variation of one, denoting the yearly seasons.
The venerable cuckoo clock has been around for hundreds of years - the first one ever described was in the early 1600s - reliably announcing the hours of the day with its cute, tiny mechanical bird singing out 1, 2, 3, etc., chirps for each hour that would then begin to pass. Timekeeping aside, symbolically the clocks represent a strong connection to nature, the rhythmic and cyclical passage of the four seasons, an assurance that life goes on. Aesthetically it was probably no accident that the early cuckoos were adorned in intricate leaf patterns, forest creatures, or spring flowers. They were representations of the rural countryside, pastoral peace, and nature’s beasts. They held special spiritual meaning for their keepers. Today, they are largely a novelty, simple tellers of time (if they work at all) and largely ignored by a public that prefers digital to analog.
However, like any clock, cuckoos can sometimes run fast or slow. If indeed they are intended to be a reflection of the world as it has and always will be, like Mother Nature, they can occasionally go off script. In Filmmaker Carlos Navarro’s enchanting animated short, FALLIN’, awakening in a season not its own - Nature's clock is apparently not quite in sync - the Winter Spirit must learn to discover beauty in an unfamiliar landscape, confronting personal biases and embracing the ever-changing cycle. They aren’t exactly amused or thrilled to discover that the Autumn Spirit is still around, believing they should now rule the realm, but they are curious, too. So with Autumn tagging along - Autumn views Winter as a peer, maybe even family, but Winter would never entertain such a notion - Winter wanders through the magnificent and expansive Irati Forest, with its rainbow-hued beech and fir trees, its lush environment a welcoming host to all creatures great and small [the locale is one of the last protected refuges for black and white-backed woodpeckers, and yes, we do spot one during Winter’s trek]. Winter is coming, but for the moment, Autumn still beckons. Initially, Winter appears to be in a hurry, but as their journey continues, they slow down to appreciate the stunning beauty of the woods. You know, stopping and smelling the roses. We aren’t going to relay to you the entire adventure - you must experience it fully - because you see, you shouldn’t be allowed a CliffsNotes version of this story. Winter is on the trail to enlightenment. Maybe you should share this awakening by walking with Winter. Take a little time and enjoy the view, to quote a popular daytime talk show.
In a “making of” documentary about “Fallin’,” several of the animators and the Director mention totems. Believed to have originated among indigenous peoples, the totem is an emblem of a hereditary clan, you know, the normal familial passage from one generation to the next. Like the cuckoo clock, the totem is a symbol, here a representation of family, symbolized by a natural object or animal. An ode to a different type of time passing. And contrary to popular contemporary thought, the idea that a totem is a symbol of social hierarchy is completely false. They are monuments to ancestry, nature, and time. Look at it this way. In “Fallin’,” if a totem were actually a reflection of social status, Winter would insist on being at the bottom, supporting the other seasons - Spring, Summer, and Autumn - stacked above on the pole. Again, we are simplifying things here because of space limitations, but Winter would be wrong. If anything, all four of the seasons would be at the bottom, sharing in supporting nature as it evolves through yearly birth, maturity, aging, and death. They are integral to each other, not really different, but absolutely necessary to each other. A totem is a lesson in intersectionality, that is, the intertwined relationships among social concepts, such as gender, identity, sexuality, and ability. Politics and religion often preach difference - in the current world order, they provide a reason to hate, erase, and destroy. Intersectionality reminds us that everything is connected, and that difference, as currently and cruelly defined, is, well, an illusion. And if we were to slow down and take a gander at what is happening outside, Nature would already have a plan for us to follow.
This year’s Nevermore is turning out to be a study in understanding that there is no other, just us. The narratives aren’t always so calm and mesmerizing as in “Fallin’,” but the pattern is unmistakable. We don’t think that was the plan, but somehow the results have been appropriate. Things aren't good out there right now, so let’s remember. Cuckoos aren't always about only time. Totems aren’t about social class, patriarchy, or any form of domination. The seasons are not discrete. Don’t rush through “Fallin’.” Enjoy its staggering elegance, its rich color palette, its soothing musical score, its perfection . . . but also, please truly think about what you are witnessing as you watch, if that makes sense. Navarro’s film is incredibly lovely, but it also so impressively instructive.
FALLIN’ will screen as part of the “It’s Only a Nightmare, Charlie Brown” shorts program, physically and virtually, at Nevermore, 2/28-3/2/2025!
Carlos Navarro art
ESDIP Animation Studio
https://carolinatheatre.org/festival/nevermore-film-festival/ -online