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A Breath Hush 1996
Bea De Visser excerpt: 2"41 min. original duration: 7" 52 minutes, Betacam-SP Excerpt of the film A short film about a main act in life: breathing. The film is located in the realm where breathing is impossible - a man disappears under the water surface and given by nature he is urged to return to the other side. The action of 'A breath hush ' takes place almost entirely under water. After a close-up of the surface, the camera disappears under water, to follow the movements of a diver. As the minutes go by, you also hear the sounds of breathing and heartbeat, you begin wondering when the diver will start gasping for air. You see images of another, 'breathtaking ' world, where the man almost becomes an alien, being like an unborn child in his amniotic fluid, a cosmonaut adrift in the universe. But the man is unavoidably forced to break away from these immaterial spheres, to emerge and fill his lungs with air... "It is hard to find something more important for human existence than breathing. Breathing is an unconscious act under normal conditions, nobody takes to much notice of doing it. I wanted to make this film about a physical action we all practice during our lives: inhaling air, breathing. If we fail continuing no human existence will be left. A BREATH HUSH is my first short film. I then felt the need to make a mark on what is considered short and at the same time of short but emotionally long duration. Eight minutes is a short but a very long time without inhaling." The man, Robert de Bruin, was an engineer of the Dutch Army. He worked at the time of the shooting as a diver in a team of specialists who build constructions under water. He was one of the main diving instructors at the base of the Dutch Land Forces in 's- Hertogenbosch.
abreathhush.pdf
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