Purple Sea
Made from images filmed by the Syrian artist Amel Alzakout after the boat on which she was fleeing Syria sank off the coast of Lesbos, Purple Sea reports on the moment in which the co-director and the other passengers are floating in the sea in their lifejackets, waiting to be rescued. Her voice-over accompanies this extremely poignant experience.
Made from images filmed by the Syrian artist Amel Alzakout after the boat on which she was fleeing Syria sank off the coast of Lesbos, Purple Sea reports on the moment in which the co-director and the other passengers are floating in the sea in their lifejackets. Punctuating this poignant—and unbearable— experience, her voice-over recounts “her shipwreck” or private thoughts, as a way to hang on. The often immersed camera captures muffled shouts, and inner worlds, lost. A singular work that decentres the perspective in a definitive and essential way, on what is happening only a few nautical miles away from Europe. “She is filming and speaking. To him, to herself, to us, perhaps. Floating legs in sweat pants, jeans, thronged together. A blouse with butterflies, it looks like their wings are flapping in the water. Fuck you all! She speaks, she rages, and she films to beat being tired, being cold, the fact that help isn't coming. To beat dying, just for something to remain.”
Emilie Bujès
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