eszter toth / אסתר טוט
Memoirs of a Nurse
(2014-2015)
Synopsis
« Memoirs of a nurse » is the third part of a trilogy of video works featuring marionnettes in a hybrid of theater and film.
The action takes place after death, in a beyond where psychoanalysis turns out to be obligatory and also an in nite process.
Through the eyes of the protagonist, the lm portrays how she and the different characters from her life relate
to psychoanalysis. She tries to figure out the meaning of love via transference towards the therapist, whom she perceives as a rescuing, reparative object.
On the blurred line between dream and nightmare, utopia and dystopia, the lm is a loving but critical take on analysis.
in the lm, the psychoanalyst
is portrayed by a marionette that looks like David lynch, and a marionette resembling Larry David plays the receptionist at the post-mortem hall.
Characters:
-The Mother : Eva
-The daughter: Esther
-The sister: Martha
-The lover: Gui
-The friend: Ali
-The psychoanalyst: David 1
The post mortem hall receptionist and analyst N2: David 2
Statement of intent
The idea for this short lm comes from a dream i had
a few years ago. i was dead and in the beyond i found myself in a gigantic hall that
i entered through a window. here everyone was obligated to continue a psychoanalysis that they left uncompleted while alive. in the dream this post-mortem psychoanalysis was a form of atonement, both a punishment and something reassuring.
Initially i imagined it as dramatic lm played by actors, but my experience of using marionettes in « Did You dream me or did I dream you? « - that tells the tale of an impossible love through
a series of scenes from the protagonist’ life adapted from her analytical sessions - assured me that this medium proved best for the emotional and visual landscape I wanted to convey.
Since the theme of psychoanalysis as a narrative form, that is both visual as well as verbal, had became established in my first two films, « Memoirs of a nurse» came up as a logical third act.
Here all the marionettes of the last to films and even others created previously are subjected to post-mortem analysis.
Through these characters, some of the earlier themes are reworked, but the characters themselves have grown and this adds more layers to their earlier narratives.
The film does not distinguish between real and imaginary life, nor real or imagined characters, both have equal dramatic and symbolic meaning.
Thus scenes alternate between real and imaginary ash backs, real and imaginary characters. The tone however is all around ironic and absurdist, owing from a bizarre situation of being in a world beyond death that remains in continued interaction with world of the living.
As the receptionist of the post mortem hall tells the main character in the beginning of the film:
« Here the rules are more strict then in life. You have to work in a factory all night to pay for your sessions.»
So all seven of them work in a factory that produces words, assembling letters into words on an in nite conveyor belt.
Since relaxation plays an important part in the analytical session, here the monotony of the mouvements provokes the creative regression.
Such rhythmical mouvements don’t only serve a purpose of drawing attention away (often tense) but leads the subject
to a state close to a state of sleep, thus favourable to the production of the words.
The scenes alternate between the analytic sessions and «flash- backs» that are real or imagined, these are not a simple recall of the past, but an interrogation and elaboration of narratives taking place in a space-time already gone.
The post mortem analysis offers a chance for the main character to deepen her understanding as she goes over the major themes and issues that confronted her in life. It is also a reflection on how I understand the nature and use of psychoanalysis itself, thus the main character use it to find answers to such existential questions as the meaning of love, human relationships, ect.
The essential thread of the film became the emotional transference, this love relationship between analyst and patient.
Therefore in the final version of the script, I try to talk about how the analyst is a substitute for the mother, (in this specific case) and to which extent he or she is capable of repairing the past.
During one of the final scenes of the film, David 2 recites the explanation given by Freud concerning the transference:
« What is transference? Reissues, fantasies awakened by progress in therapy that are characterised by the substitution of the analyst with a person from the patient’s past.»
In the end, the film is about the analytical process as I conceive of it.
In «Memoirs of a nurse» the analytical process turns out be infinite.
The visual and technical aspect of the film:
The new character:
We introduce one new character: the marionette of Larry David plays the receptionist of the
post mortem hall; he is also
the analyst of the David Lynch marionette, who is also a psychoanalyst.
The interaction between the two analysts is inspired by the relationship of Freud and Ferenczi. The dialogue between them is partially extracted from the « Clinical Diary « of Sandor Ferenczi.
The dialogue this time is dubbed.
In contrast to the previous cubical sets, the motifs for the sets are oval: in reference to the in nite repetition, and the colours are more striking, combinations of various shades of green.
The consulting rooms are round, or half circle for the simultaneous sessions.
The set for post-mortem hall was partly inspired by « Heaven can wait » of Ernst Lubitsch.
Ideally the film should be projected on a «Fogscreen»: a translucent screen, which has an immaterial quality.
It can also be exhibited together with some of the original sets of the lm.
Credits:
Marionnettes: Petr et Katia Rezac
Original Story board: Ali Mahdavi
Sets: Andras Solt
Puppeteers: Nora Revuczky and Gergely Petho
Director of photography:
David Lukacs
Editing: Delphine Illouz
Colorist: Eszter Nagy
Sound mixing: Balazs Barna
Music: Barak Benjamin
Written and directed: Esther Toth
The film is completed with the help of the Fondation nationale des arts graphiques et plastiques (Fnagp)
and the Centre nationale des arts plastiques (support for artistic research) (Cnap)
The film was shot in Budapest in the Studio Umbrella