Unseen by Sjaan Flikweert
Director Helmie Stil calls this “A poetry film about the feeling of isolation, struggle and being unseen.” A woman holds, releases and inhabits her breath underwater until she begins to seem less substantial than her suit of bubbles. The often-eerie similarity between Dutch and English is exploited to full effect, as the words on the screen meet their whispered counterparts for an effect at once intimate and menacing, especially as violence is described but not shown, and the viewer struggles to interpret the actress’s struggle: Is she swimming or drowning?
The poem is by Dutch spoken-word artist Sjaan Flikweert, and a final line of text, which appears after the poem seems to be done, reads, “1 in every 5 women endures domestic violence.” Then the title appears, this time to translate not a spoken Dutch word but only a sharply indrawn breath. A stand-out videopoem.
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Dave Bonta is a poet, editor, and web publisher from the Appalachian mountains of central Pennsylvania.
