EXODUS
2001/2006
a Zingend Oog production
Concept and creation Mendel Hardeman
Music Kate Neal, Mendel Hardeman
Duration 74'
Synopsis
A mirror lies on the gravel. On it stands a dove. His legs are chained, fixed to the mirrorÕs wooden frame. His nails scratch the glass. He tries to fly up Ð he lifts himself off the ground and, for a short moment, hangs in the air - but the chains throw him back, hitting the cold reflecting glass. There is no escape. He is forced to live with his own reflection.
In EXODUS, a dream about suicide triggers a sequence of images straight from the subconscious, as an expression of life that flashes in front of your eyes during the slow-motion silence that falls at the moment of the suicidal act. A life full of doubt, compulsive self-reflection, feelings of religious damnation, the longing for love which remains unfulfilled, and misplaced tenderness that finds its way out in the form of an introverted cruelty.
EXODUS is a diary of visual poetry, a dream of imprisonment wrapped up in itself: the adventures of the happy rubberband-people play counterpoint with images of an embrio, unborn, being dragged along by its umbilical chord through endless underground corridors; a free flying bird suddenly finding itself locked up in a soap bubble; feelings of physical loneliness crawling around as insects, lost on a surface of human skin. They all take the spectator along in a voyage through the mind and feelings of a human being in depression Ð a being who desperately attempts to save himself using his camera as a means for therapy. This coagulates into a stream of consciousness inhabited by metaphors and symbols that come to life and execute their dance around the mind ready to die - only to awake in a liberating catharsis which unexpectedly breaks the story open, revealing the circumstances under which the film was made and why his maker remains alive.
Made with a hand-held digital camera and shot in the years 2000 and 2001, the film remained unedited until the end of 2005, when the maker felt he had finally gathered enough distance between himself and the subject to be able to start turning it into a movie.
Title EXODUS
Produced in the Netherlands, 2006
Original format DVcam-PAL, 4:3
Duration 74 min 35 sec
Languages English, Greek, Hebrew, Portuguese, Spanish
Written, produced and made by Mendel Hardeman
A Singing Eye / Zingend Oog production
Music Mendel Hardeman, Kate Neal
Appearing on screen
Antonia Fritche
Barbara Okma
Brodie Nairn
Debora Hardeman
Josu Melendez Pelez
Jurrian Vil
Kate Neal
Mendel Hardeman
Richard Price
Robbie B.
Rdiger Meyer
Additional cameras, lights, cables, props, manpower, etc
Antonia Fritche
Barbara Okma
Bernd Härpfer
Brapakaran Magalingam
Daniel Zorzano
Debora Hardeman
Josu Melendez Pelez
Kate Neal
Maria Schina
Rdiger Meyer
Tao Vrhovec-Sambolec
Glass art Brodie Nairn
Latex art Natascha van Nooijen Kooij
Origami Debora Hardeman
Poetry the book Ecclesiastes
the book Genesis
Mendel Hardeman
Krista Vincent
Nikos Gkatsos
Additional sound design Mathis Nitschke
Speaking voice Hagar Stav, Mendel Hardeman
Original music performed by
Andr OÕNeil
Brice Soniano
Daniel Zorzano
Elin Søderstrom
Goska Hojenska
Kate Neal
Josu Melendez Pelez
Mar Tenas Bastida
Mendel Hardeman
Susanne Dick
With partial financial support of
Fonds voor de Scheppende Toonkunst
