LAST AFTERNOON
This short film was created in 2023 for Prof. Brinda Bose's course on European Modernism. The primary inspiration for the film was Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca's sonnet sequence titled, "Sonnets of Dark Love" (1983). The predominant theme of the sonnet sequence is love and loss. The idea was to show these subtle human emotions in a brief celluloid sequence. The characters in the movie represent a certain romantic ideal, played out in different spatial and temporal spaces.
The flaneur, having recently lost his love, predominantly articulates his grief through poetry. In a library, a girl reads aloud the second half of the same sonnet sequence. She is to meet her lover on her way home. The lover arrives early and is impatient. In another temporal leap, we see the lovers in an isolated space, eager to spend time alone. They are overseen by the poet from his room. As the couple exchanges words of poetry, the poet imagines himself in the boy's place. Fond memories crawl back as he recites the familiar lines from the sonnet sequence. The bubble of imagination bursts when the poet observes that the couple has already left the place, leaving behind the dried rose on a rock seat.
Cast
The poet/ flaneur- Somdeb Paul
The girl- Neha Keshari
The boy- Raman
Crew
Editor and Cinematographer- Rithas Ahmed
Background score- Mozart Clarinet Concerto in A major and KZfaq Music
Voiceovers- Pratyasha, Somdeb and Raman
Lyrics- Lorca's "Sonnets of Dark Love"
Production- Pratyasha
Screenplay and Direction- Pratyasha Sen
Location courtesy- JNU
No copyright infringement was attempted.