'I'm sorry LOVE'

What does it mean to be in a certain space at a specific moment, and how does this tie in with not only your, but life in general? Is there such a thing as common existence or a concept of life which is not only universal, but can it be expressed at all and if so, how? These conceptual inquiries are as old as mankind, nevertheless, film-makers generally tend to shy away from them in our post-modern age, which more often than not prefers to feign disillusionment at life's mysteries. After all, if God is dead and any attempt at political action seems futile from the start, what point is there in making sense of the world and our existence in it?

Fortunately, Julien Pearly's I'm sorry LOVE bravely aspires to come to terms with this universal concept of subjectivity within the space of existence.

First of all, to fully appreciate the merits of this short film, one has to be aware of the fact that each space, in this case the city of Edinburgh, has its own sensuality rendering it distinct from any other space in the world. Every city has its own essence made up of associative images, smells and colours. Berlin has its evocative grandeur, its high buildings always emerged in half shadow, or half light, its self-ironic treatment of old and new in which the sausage with sauerkraut is treated with the same kind of gleeful integration into the day to day as the latest electronic gypsy swing musical concussion which is blasted from the rooftops in Kreutzberg. London is a celebration of the grey and brown tones of its buildings with its numerous makeshift cafés in which the light baby blue paint is fashionably cracked, while the paper lampshades appear to be the latest instalment of the local artist/writer/musician/waiter. At the same time, the smell of different foods dominate the Brick Lanes of London with an underlying hint of the old, the musty, in short, the river.

What then is Edinburgh? Edinburgh, for me, is sitting in a kitchen in which every item, from the cupboards to the toaster seems to stem from the seventies, where a discarded Elvis figurine with only one arm sits comfortably on the spice rack next to half empty jars of middle eastern spices. Where people do not offer you a nice piece of cake with a cup of tea, but a shot glass of Polish cherry vodka with some oatcakes and hummus. Edinburgh is orange and brown, the Gothic of its streets coincides perfectly with the warm tones of the trees on Greyfriar's cemetery. Edinburgh is the eternal autumnal city.

Pearly perfectly captures this sense of Edinburgh as a city, as his protagonists lounge on a couch which seems to have been adopted from the Bethany shop, they sit on a radiator in front of those quintessential windows which let in the draft and whose slightly tilted angle within the glass makes the world outside seem like a mysterious place or they cycle through the hustle and bustle of the Haymarket area or the greens of the meadows. Pearly understands that space is not in itself self-contained, but made up of an infinite amount of components, ever-changing, ever-shifting, refusing to validate time and space as being fixed. The stop-motion graphics of the film perfectly encapsulate this sense of time as a subjective construct, in disrupting the continuity of a fixed time illusion. The overlapping of sound and image and the discrepancy between the two comes to mirror the notion of subjective time or moments being real, but not necessarily in sync with what we would like to think of as the general truth of the world. To put it differently: you're in your room, hanging up laundry (must be Sunday night), when maybe without even be conscious of it, you hear the sound of a coffee grinder coming from the kitchen in the flat upstairs, this sound is as much part of your reality as it is of your upstairs neighbours', even though you come to think of it as disparate from you as it originates in a different 'scene' from the one happening in your life.

As such, the sound of someone making tea will overlap images of the characters sitting on the bed with a guitar or looking out of the window. At the same time, the dialogue runs over a series of disparate images, as such mirroring the subjective thought process and the latter's omni-presence in all subjective existence. There is a sense of eeriness to the images and sound which stems from the subtle dismantlement of a fixed time-space continuity.

The concept of Imagination as treated in the film comes to bear resemblance to the romantic concept of Imagination as an imprint of reality in the 'mind's eye', most tellingly revealed over the image of the characters in the park as the Romantics themselves explained Imagination with the image of a tree. They wondered if the tree is reality or whether the image of the tree as presented in the onlookers mind came to represent reality. The male protagonist struggles with the concept of separate realities, whereas the female protagonist seems to accept an imaginary world as her own subjective world. Imagination comes to stand as the process of 'going into that imaginary world and knowing that its yours'. The male protagonist, seems to conflict with his own subjective existence in trying to 'eradicate the illusion of choice'. Theses modern characters are very aware of the main pitfalls of Romanticism, as whereas the latter receded to Nature and almost shied away from society, this couple realises the impossibility of living outside the societal norm and as such comes to feel disconnected from their own truth.

This impossibility of living outside the societal construct furthermore manifests itself in the emotional reality of the characters and the discrepancies in subjective perception of the same relationship, ultimately resulting in alienation. The male character suggests that being in love must be lived from one moment to the next, without the, what he sees as, socially imposed concept of finding that 'one' person. The female character counters that this concept is not so much socially constructed as emotionally perceived as, for her, the feeling of jealousy has nothing to do with society, but comes from within. She realizes that he is shying away from a notion of collective responsibility. In our times of extreme individualism, subjective thinking comes to suggest an entitlement to 'have it all' as he puts it. At the same time, she argues that all action has a consequence, a fact which can, and indeed should not be negated. As our reality is as subjective as it is social, individual responsibility must include the subjects which make up your reality as they are in your immediate vicinity.

A sense of melancholia pervades the film as the characters come to realise the impossibility to fully connect to an Other. Modern existence is in essence alienated and even though a certain closeness can be achieved, all in all the discrepancies in subjective perception render a coming together of individuals impossible. While I'm sorry LOVE affirms the truthful nature of all subjective imagining, it equally depicts the consequence of these disparate realities which cannot but result in a gap, a separation of subjective beings.

The film's overall construct is tightly assembled and the cinematography is of a haunting beauty as the camera lingers lovingly on the characters through rain drops on the window. The blurred lens used to depict some images comes to reinforce this almost fairy-tale, but definitely mysterious quality of the world we live in, all the while hinting at that unknown place from which all creation, expression or, indeed, thoughts stem. The characters often linger on the edge of the frame, while the camera emphasises a seemingly unimportant element in the setting, as such granting an equal importance to our surroundings. In this it comes to embrace life in all its complexity without presumptuously trying to render it 'understandable' or 'knowable'.

All in all, I'm sorry LOVE represents an impressive piece of film-making which captures this sense of what it means to live in the world, in a space made up of disparate subjective perceptions perfectly. The melancholic beauty of the images introduce this special kind of sadness which is as comforting as disquieting, as the film quietly whispers: 'I'm sorry LOVE'!

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