Fadeouts

Marta dropped by with two bottles of rose wine in the evening, so work went out the window. She left around 10p.m. and I've been trying to resurface since. Right now it's raining outside, and I'm looping this:

It's not exactly groundbreaking, but it's definitely doing the job. As for what job that is... Who's to know.

I recently saw short documentary called Birds Get Vertigo Too about an aerial acrobat and her rigger, who are a couple. It opens with a shot of the guy shaving in the morning and a question: who gets more scared - the riggers or the artists? He says the aerialists (love that word) cry a lot before the shows, but they won't admit to being scared of heights. The last dialogue between them comes from some rehearsal, where he starts apologizing for being tired, and she explains that she just asked whatever it was that she had asked him about, because she wasn't sure if there was a problem, or if he was just worried she was too high. To which he replies that he was worried she was too high, but that that was just "his headspace".

It ends with footage from the actual show, with her doing her routine on a big silver hoop suspended in the air, and him darting up and down one of the poles as her counterweight. Halfway through, the spoken word background gives way to sounds of muted sobbing, probably recorded before the show, when the girl was getting ready to perform. Eventually they fade as well.

It's a really beautiful, and beautifully constructed piece. The author's name is Sarah Cunningham. It's her first film.