Milwaukee’s Mark G.E. has been a musician and a cable TV host, but with “Soul Chamber” he shines under his third hat, filmmaker. A short film in color-tinted black and white, “Soul Chamber” is an almost silent movie with intertitles interspersed with voice narration by Victor DeLorenzo and an appropriately moody score by Sigmund Snopek. An intriguing exercise in Guy Madden Land, “Soul Chamber” explores the surrealism inherent in early cinema through masterful settings. Milwaukee visual artist J. Karl Bogartte composed rear screen projections, New York’s Tine Kindermann made the puppets dance and some fine silent era acting was provided by such recognizable locals as photographer Francis Ford and musicians Keith Brammer and Stonie Rivera along with WMSE’s Tom Crawford.
The Georges Melies-era special effects help tell the uneasy story of a father who imprisons his daughter’s soul and displays her lovely body in a traveling carnival soul—the sort of production Dr. Caligari might have patronized. “Soul Chamber” will be featured in this year’s Milwaukee Short Film Festival, 7 p.m., Nov. 9 at the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Lubar Auditorium.
