Review of Tracie Mitchell's dance film WHOLE HEART
by Bob Lockyer

Tracie Mitchell's short film Whole Heart is a disturbing drama it is centred at lonely bus station. Well, I think it is a bus station. One of the great strengths of this dance film is you are always uncertain where you are and question what is happening. The film opens with a shot of a wide skyscape with a small figure pausing, the suitcase they are carrying is heavy, as they cross the frame from left to right. The figure, you discover, is a young woman who is now waiting in the bus station. Why is she there, you ask? Why has she brought a teddy bear with her?

A car drives past. Were the passengers giving her the once over? Suddenly the car reverses back into the light and the passengers, all male, stare at the girl. Do they know here? Have they come to bring her home? What will happen next? It is never made clear what the relationships are between the people you meet in the film? I think that another viewer will read something very different into Mitchell's well devised situations in this film.

The credits tell you that Whole Heart started out as a stage work and as is often the case in a dance film it's the dance sequences that are the film weakness. The movement is still stage movement and it doesn't seem to have been reworked enough or rethought for the camera. I feel that dance movement in dance films and videos has to be true to purpose. In Cost of Living, Lloyd Newson has followed the example of Hollywood and given us “dance numbers” but in his other films all the movement adds to our knowledge of the drama and the characters that perform them. The movement material enriches our experience.

In a wordless dramas like, Whole Heart, the small details, believable performances and well chosen locations that are the keys to success. There is one moment where the girl feels some old and peeling wall paper with out stretched hands. This cries out for tight close up, so you can visually share in the movement and the almost feel the textures of those layers peeling wallpaper.

This wallpapered room one of seven different locations used in this short film. Through out this film, Mitchell seems to be playing with time. The events happen in different locations and I presume at different time in this girl's past. In one, a long corridor with doors off it, a young child runs, away from camera, in and out of the rooms chased by its baby sitter with a teddy bear. Is this child the girl who is waiting at the bus station? Perhaps she's the baby sitter or is she the mother of this child? This simple mind game sets me thinking and that's what all good dance screen should do.

Mitchell is well served by her cinematographer, Benjamin Doudney. He has created some wonderful textures giving each of the seven locations has a different feel. From the bare glare of the pools of light at the bus station to the rich golden velvet feel of that corridor. Byron Scullin's music and soundscape also helps to build the tension in this ten minute film.

For me it is the performance of the dancer, playing the young woman that lets this film down. She doesn't seem to be able to lead us through the story. In film or video it all has to happen behind the performer's eyes. We should be able to almost read their thoughts, share their fears and so be part of the drama. Is this why the film lacks close ups? They are missing at the start of the film. There are six shots: the sky, a short dance sequence, the walking figure with the suitcase, two shots of street lamps, a wide angle (WA)of bus station as the sun sets, girl sitting with suitcase and teddy bear, a ceiling light in the bus station, WA with the car driving in. Do all these shots help tell the story? Do they all pull there weight? Not for me, I think the opening sequence would have been better with slightly fewer shots. After the titles the shot of the evening sky could have paned down to see the walking girl with the suit case followed by a long shot of the figure walking to the bus station,. This way we discover it's a girl. Having discovered that I would have thought we need to see her a bit closer as she sits on the seat to wait. The very odd shot of the ceiling light in the bus station could have been replaced by a different shot of the girl. I think the light shot was there to give a sense of waiting but a closer shot of the teddy bear would have done that and pointed up an important prop in the film. A mid shot of the girl sitting and waiting then suddenly reacting to the sound of a car, in the distance, would have got us into the drama of the film.

Whole Heart is full of unanswered questions but I am not dissatisfied or disappointed just intrigued. Why did the men in car drag the girl towards their car? Are they going to gang rape her or take her home? Why do they do neither and just drive away? Who is the woman who drives up at the end of the film? Why does she just take the teddy bear leaving the young woman to wait alone? I find it so rewarding to find myself asking questions at the end of viewing this film and still several hours after seeing the film thinking perhaps I've missed a vital clue. But would it have been better at the end to have repeated some of the shots used at the start of the film? The girl sitting alone and a different wide angle of the bus station in the sun set? Even have a car drive up. The whole story would then have started again leaving us, the viewers even more uneasy and questioning.

Mitchell had financial support for this film from the Australian Film Commission and the screen play was developed during 2001 to 2003 as a result of an Australian Arts Council Fellowship. Idea development and script writing time are important in all film making. This is something those who commission dance screen work should remember and understand. Three to six months is, in my opinion, not enough time to fully develop a good script, budget it and then to start to fund raise for a production. We in the UK also have to see if we can find several other sources of funding for this sort of short dance film other than the Arts Council funds. Mitchell was lucky to get funding from the Australian Film Commission; this is the body that funds feature films. Why couldn't dance film makers here in the UK get similar support? Distribution and this film certain deserves a wider distribution, is a world wide problem for dance film and video and one that must be tackled urgently.

You can get information on Tracie Mitchell's film Whole Heart on her web site
www.twiringshelias.com.

Bob Lockyer: July 2006
Lockyerlewes@aol.com