51 Fragments of a Wandering Mind
Dustin Rosemark
Review Written: George A. Larkins
Memories are akin to fragmented bits of organic data electronically coursing through the synapses of the human brain. To dream, to recall, to reflect, these abilities all rely upon drawing from the well of personal human experience. In the Dustin Rosemark film, 51 Fragments of a Wandering Mind (2014), an equivalent of an intimate and interpersonal journey of an individual’s memory has been obtained in a cinematic form.
The immersion is immediate with no precursory title sequence or distracting graphical elements. A juxtaposed image space is formed through the use of a lomograhy film camera with abrupt frame jumping, cuts and a discourse that emulates the nonlinear workings of a human memory. Furthering this phantasmatic body effect is the employment of dust, hair and scratches that are engrained in society as memory cues from the 1950’s era home movie. Audiences are subconsciously trained to recognize this effect as remembrances of past events. Light leaks and lens flare, also utilized, have been given a place in public image absorption as a dream signifiers which promotes the desired effect of audience grafting and synchronicity. A wider concentric range is developed between the visual and the audible. An unseen narrating vocal image is presented which hovers above flickering celluloid images. It is a diegetic talisman divulging the methodology for the journey which the viewer is about to embark upon. The narrator is introspecting and mirroring personal reflection causing the same to occur within the viewer. Once the journey has begun the audience is restricted between the narrow crevasse of observance imagery and the lateral dimension of sound image. Traditional narrative or plot escape routes are denied and create total envelopment in a reflective experience. Ambiguity is forefront to success in the effect of grafting with a guided psyche.
A journey is traveling from point A to point B and possibly returning to point A. Traveling is motion and the mind is a camera recording the people, places and events along the way. The journey changes the traveler and Mr. Rosemark’s film leaves the indelible impression that we all share similar experience. Is it possible to walk in another person’s shoes, step into their mind, and experience another individual’s life memories? Cinema is as close as we can come to such transcendence and 51 fragments of a wandering mind is a film which will allow us to do so.
George Larkins 