The short film Perceval is dedicated to Ingmar Bergman and no one familiar with The Seventh Seal will miss what it holdsin common with the gloomy Swedish classic. Aside from the medieval setting andknightly allusions, Perceval reflectson social breakdown in a stark landscape of desolation. Directed by
Perceval isone third of “Trilogy of Light,” which will be screened along with several ofBunker’s other shorts at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 20, at the Oriental Theatre. Onthe surface the three short films are considerably different, but, according toBunker, each focuses on a “central character on a journey or quest to obtainthe unobtainable. The metaphor for the unobtainable is light.”
The award-winning Starlight is a whimsical yet strangelyaffecting story of a space explorer who builds a rocket powered by music. It’sBunker’s one film that bears comparison to Guy Maddin for playfully integratingarchival footage and gestures from bygone media into the narrative. A stillphotographer as well as a filmmaker, Bunker understands how to compose thefound elements of reality into engaging pictures.
The trilogy’s newest third, The Albatross, receives its premiere onThursday. The enigmatic retelling of the old seafaring story features a humanactor as a disturbingly monstrous bird, discovered on the icy shores of the sea(
An interest in fairy tales andmythic stories, whether drawn from folklore or pop culture, permeates thetrilogy. “The films all take place in make-believe places,” Bunker says. “Thecreation of unknown worlds and laws excites and inspires me. Once in suchlocations I can explore and do whatever.” As short films they bear less of aburden to tell their stories straightforwardly. Bunker cites Stanley Kubrickalong with Bergman and Martin Scorsese as signposts for what he is trying toreach in “maximizing the language of film” through visual storytelling.
ForBunker, the paradoxes of fairy tales are similar to the cinema of imagination.“When I watch a film and I am confused, that’s when I get excitedfilm as ariddle.”
