I think I've mentioned a few times that Josh Darling's Death is a Very Long Time was my favorite thing that I saw at this year's Freakshow Film Festival. If you hadn't heard me say that, allow me to repeat. Death is a Very Long Time was my favorite film at this year's Freakshow Film Festival.
I don't want to say too much, nor understate anything. I don't think that there's a way that I can ruin your viewing of this picture by talking about it, as I don't think that words have the ability to accurately express the Death's visual style and kinetic energy.
Death is a Very Long Time is an instructional video to the recently deceased and explains to them how to cope with being a spirit stuck on Earth with the living. I've always had a bit of a soft spot for this concept, like the “Handbook” in Beetlejuice or the “Tibetan Book of the Dead” (which is fascinating and bizarre). I like the idea that even though death is man's most elusive mystery and due to its inevitability perhaps its most important as well, there exist guides to help ease you through the process. There is no actual knowledge of what happens after death, and one must use one's imagination to forge an idea of what life after death would be like.
Death is a Very Long Time argues that this unexistence can be excruciating, mostly because you must share it with the living. It encourages flexing your metaphysical powers to enact revenge on those who carry on after you die.
I connected with this film. I like its sense of humor that is laced with anger and mean spirit. The disdain for society is portrayed as a perspective of the dead, but is a way for the director (who is very much alive) to express his own. (Consider how the spirits are as materialistic as the living). I like how even at less than 10 minutes of running time, it throws such a flurry of images at the screen that you will not be able absorb them all in even a couple of sittings. One holds the film in one's memory similar to how they would hold a dream - not clearly, but in slow-motion flashes.
I watched a lot of movies films at this year's festival, and I saw a lot of promise in first-time directors such as Wyatt Weed (the beautiful Shadowland) and George Clark (Battle of the Bone). But out of everyone there, I think I am most interested in following the career of Josh Darling. With Death is a Very Long Time, I've seen but a few moments of what he can do, and that is nowhere near satiating.
