Cycles
Reviewed in July 2010
Director: Zeinabu Irene Davis. Cast: Stephanie Ingram, Zeinabu Irene Davis, Marc Chéry, Darryl Munyungo Jackson, Doris Owanda Johnson. Screenplay: Zeinabu Irene Davis (based
on a story by Doris Owanda Johnson).Twitter Capsule:
Short doesn't flaunt ambition, but it's a piquant, well-shot, subtly layered peek at a woman waiting for a late period.
"Dedicatd to the Spirit and Vision of filmmakers Kathleen Collins & Hugh Robertson"; Erzuli, Erzuli Oshun Oshun "For the goddess within us all..."; tilt down to votive
candle, UCLA grainy b&w; pure texture; period two weeks late; reading Beloved at table; brushing; Afr dress and bedsheet; clock ticking (heavy pendulum); zoom in on SI; vacuum
at distorted fish-eye vantage; narr all-white linien; char "Progress is being made"; Jetee toilet cleaning; wailing trumpet, more Jeteee, rep poses superimp; "You're doing
okay and you're gonna get better" morose look into mirror; ECU tooth brushing; caressing womb; face and shoulders inbg mirror but body cropped at neck in fg; scar on wrist, or
birthmark?; naked in bubble bath; bath almost all toes at drain; more jaunty trumpet; bath got longer "for what seemeed like an eternity"; rich, high-contrast shot of burning
incense and smelling daisy in bedroom; accel dream of frenetic ZID on train tracks in downtrodden LA; cowbell at invoking Erzulie, Oshon, Oya; incantatory scat; again: "Progress
is being made - you're doin' okay, and you're gonna get BETter"; black man in street accel road, then ZID in same place; diff fem accents "Progress is being made"; mult "We get
what we really ask for"; blood on the white sheets; another slow handheld pan all around the objects on the bric-a-brac table: candle, flower, statues; Potatoes, Cognac,
Chocolate when various women anticipate their periods (over end credits) Vèvè Miriam Makeba singing; Clora Bryant on trumpet; Shakere DMJ; Martha Jean-Claude on
Caliban Records; not Hershey's but German chocolate, Haagen Dazs; pb, mayo, and lettuce; "And Very Special Thanks to the Inspiration of My Mother, Grandmothers, The Orisha,
and All Ancestors" - Haiti, Yoruba;
B
