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Veda Criticism

(Text by Blue Magpie, at the Winter Dialogue – 2020, organized by Grove. India.) Full Text.

The 25-minute Veda by Lola Lustosa and Vanessa Cokaric is a poetic immersion into the genesis of a new life form in otherwise a conflicting society. Studded with voiceovers, text, and varied soundscapes, Veda makes for an empathetic viewership, where the performative body of a dancer communicates between the virtual and the Lebenswelt. Borne in the belly of this performance, is an innocent desire on the threshold of its coming to life. The performance takes place in a living space, a room, in the form of dance in relation to the object of time, an hourglass. This structure is immanent to the design of the film, and must not be seen isolated in any possible semantic realm.

A pair of hands somewhat caress a belly in the opening scene against a black background filled with sounds resembling electric shocks. We’ll leave it to that, for the representation of any kind is an arbitrary endeavor and presupposes a distraction to immersion. This philosophy perhaps reinforces the artistic intention of Veda: To see the film for itself and not as a symbolism tended towards abstractions in possible world semantics. One may, therefore, start thinking of Veda in terms of empiricism, phenomenology, and even hermeneutics. The opening scene serves as an insight into the what-it-feels-like of the performer. This phenomenon further evolves into an elaboration after the title appears on the screen, where we see the performer as a body and not as just a belly, for the first time. The body crawls to the hourglass in languid uneasiness of her becoming. The performer, Vanessa, is also speaking, but her lips don’t read any recognizable linguistic possibility. The voice-over technique here is meticulously placed and deepens the visual immersion into the mindscape of the performer cast by an internal monologue. She speaks of an inability to sleep lined by a stream of thoughts that seem to have her suspended in waking life. The body has to keep moving though, which we see on the screen with her movements on the floor, holding the hourglass, and finally rising from the floor. The monologue arises in the threshold, where both the bodies (of the performer, and a body-becoming in her belly) speak in a mother-tongue. This tongue is molded in the language of care, concern, and a desire of passing on dance as knowledge to the in-coming life form. Perhaps dance is pure movement and can only be transmitted as dance… She rises into a set of carefree movements and the body-becoming certainly is summoned to these movements.

The room of thought is lit with sunlight drifting in through the windows. Is it day-time? Her movements follow to a black screen where white words appear lining the length of the screen with statistics of birth in our society. This is where the performance world of the film enters into a conversation with a shared reality of the Lebenswelt. In other words, the personal monologue transforms into a dialogue, between the performer and the audience. The audience, so to say, is speaking, because they read the words as they appear on the screen. If not explicitly vocal, the conversation takes place in the mindscape universe of performer and audience. This speaks volumes of the production finesse of Veda, as far as the technical aspects of film-making are concerned. What is important to note is also the fact that the screen facilitates speaking of innumerable voices, when the film is screened at film festivals and art events. The volume of speaking audience voices always already realizes the intensity of a collective human world we live in, which translates into empathy for the performer in her concern of contributing another number to the world population. This feeling has been able

to show childbirth very clearly as a choice, rather than a necessity, which again illustrates the power of Veda in the discursive realm.

‘And what about nature?’ – The performative voices this question into the opening of the next scene filled abound with rain and forest sounds. She is dancing all the more carelessly but is seen on a series of mirrors placed on the wall. The gaze is diagonal, otherwise, it would reflect the film camera on screen. But this gaze serves another purpose. The one of reflection – Look into nature, she’s within it, dancing to the rain and storm alike, birds sing to amuse, perpetual flow, the harmony all of us deserve. The audience becomes hostages to refection (thinking) and this reflection is rather strong, for it contrasts the realities of humans, with the living world of nature. This is not to be presupposed as a dichotomy between nature and culture, for the performance is located both in culture and nature as a bodily movement.

She climbs onto the window sill and the diagonal camera gaze is maintained to the point where nature sounds are cut of abruptly and chaotic bubbles of sound appear. Vanessa can be seen on the window; her movements are in tune with the cavity of the window. Is it the moment for choice? But nature sounds reappear starting from a bird chirp and ranging to thunder and rain. The uncomprehended nature of this scene is a break in the reality of immersion in Veda. Perhaps for the first time in the film, one might feel alienated. She is still moving on the window sill. Alienation is not groundless but is on a slippery ground for sure. The world of humans, reflection in nature, internal monologue, and the dialogue of concern, all have contributed to this slippery slope of alienation. In order to feel the alienation for itself, we must not prophesize about the scenes to follow. In Veda, this design of alienation is immanent to its structure: there is almost a sacred balance between alienation and immersion – so much so that the alienating stance does not break through the primordial fabric of immersion.

Still on the window, with the hourglass in her hand, another monologue is voiced. While her hands play with the hourglass, the monologue speaks of a time in general. Both the bodies are breathing together in time, they are moving, hence creating time. She is back on the floor with the hourglass now and the monologue fades into a soundscape of movements in spacey waters. Time is not linear, and therefore the narrative as well. At best, one can see Veda as a juxtaposition of impressions on a slippery floor of discourses on childbirth, population, time, nature, and desire.

Drumbeats follow and she’s playing with the hourglass lying on the floor. She slowly rises from the floor, squat. One cannot but be a part of this shamanic ritual. She’s the dancer of choices between the realms of living and coming-to-life. She has time on her hands, and it is by choice that she’s dancing. Her ritual is the dance; it purges her being off the dust of everyday sleeplessness. In this purge, intimacy is born again. She has opened herself again to the state of feeling, she can breathe again. This is expressed in the monologue, that follows the ritual. Her dance has evolved into unmediated expression, the seat of art itself, and has found the sublime.

She is able to FEEL the life breathing in her, which is not just a number to the populous generality. In her expressions of a joyous monologue, the film camera moves all around and retreats into non-existence focused at the hourglass on the floor. Very abruptly indeed, Veda

concludes with end credits displayed on a black screen. There are no resolutions to the general kind. But as far as art is concerned, her stance in the living world is that of dance. It is a liberation to discourses and demands in general. If one could paraphrase in Nietzsche’s words: Veda is that slippery realm, which is a paradise for those who know how to dance.

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