Pink Cloud: A Study of Profound Isolation
By: Stephen Wilkins
Originally published May 31, 2017, by Plasma Magazine
Pink Clouds is an experimental film by local artist Casey Doran that is playing at the Midtown Players Club in Colony Square June 1st at 8 pm. Doran’s film will leave audiences reeling in their seats and conversing afterward. The film is like a cinematic Rorschach test revealing as much about the viewer as the filmmaker. It deals with themes of isolation, objectification, love, and friendship. It’s part documentary and part cinematic poetry. Doran gathers unwanted isolated landscapes and juxtaposes them next to individuals in the depths of loneliness.
Pink Clouds follows three main non-linear plots. It subverts conventional filmic narrative for a moodier form of expressionistic cinema. Doran explores the hidden beauty in desolate places and people, from buildings lost in the ever-expanding suburban sprawl to the kids forgotten in the back of gym class. The film expresses these ideas in a purely cinematic way. This film couldn’t be transposed onto any other medium. The narrative or lack thereof is entirely reliant on the power of images.
Experimental films like this can feel pretentious, but there is enough comic relief amongst the dark subject matter to give it a genuine sense of self-awareness. The gym class scenes are reminiscent enough to ring true but are filtered through such an absurd filter that they are both poignant and comical.
The use of handheld VHS camcorder and digital camera reveal a certain duality within our senses. The VHS is blurry and grainy like our memory and perception of a situation. The clear image of the digital camera acts as the reality of the presented situation. The clear image lives in the realm of unbiased actuality while the distorted image represents our skewed perception through memory.
Check this film out! It’s not playing many places, and Midtown Players Club is only open until the end of the weekend at Colony Square. Don’t forget about the party and closing ceremony for all of the installation pieces this Saturday!
