THE MOVING PICTURE BOY ARCHIVE
O

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Title: O
Year of Release: 2006
Director: Pieter-Jan De Pue
Principal Boy Actors: Three boys feature in this movie, but the roles of the actors are not specified in the credits, so it is not possible to determine which of the credited actors are the boys.
Genre: Arthouse, Short film
Country of Production: Belgium
Length: 19 min
Language: No spoken dialogue
Availability: No official general release, but a digital copy is available
Synopsis and Interpretation
Opening with the forces of nature at their most elemental, this film portrays humans stripped of clothing and the accountrements of civilisation in a stark, parched landscape. As they search for water, they seem drawn towards Os, a symbol, perhaps, of the circle of life in which all forms are in perfect balance and equality, and in which humanity belongs to a seamless whole with no special claim to priority. In another scene, a man sits cross legged as though meditating, whilst the space around him fills up with water. We begin to hear his breathing and his heartbeat, as though he is one with the vast forces that swirl around him, with the universe itself. We see two boys in a vast, cavernous space. The smaller boy looks upwards to the disc of light coming from above, as though urged towards that O of perfect unity again. The scene cuts to the two earlier figures of the man and boy, bathed in light, coming across a great body of water. The scene is primordial – it could have come from thousands of years ago. Finally, we return at the end to the dark elemental forces of nature with which we began, and the circle is complete.
See also: Pieter-Jan de Pue's feature length film The Land of the Enlightened (2016).
Screenshots
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