Reflection: Jonathan Glazer's 'First Light'

Kirsten recommended I look at Jonathan Glazer's work as a starting off point to think about movement and more conceptual filmmaking. This film specifically has a lot of themes that I am also looking at, with dirt and filth, diaphonus dresses and water.

The film is for an Alexander McQueen collection, mixing experimental techniques with visually stunning mise en scene. There is no plot but it feels narrative based, with a muted colour scheme. The film is shot in London along the River Thames, the models walking through water, playing in the mud etc.

I enjoy watching this as there's so much to take in. The sound scape instantly drew me in, with a mixture of water and alien-y tech sounds layered together that create an echoey atmosphere. He also layers foley sounds in which break through subtlely. The beautiful clothes are also aesthetically pleasing and work well in the environment. I feel calm when watching and also intrigued.

This film is predominately a fashion film, but it can be eco-critically evaluated and analysed. It is there is a striking contrast between the high-fashion clothing and the industrial, filthy setting. We start by watching women walk through the water of the Thames (famously polluted) in dresses made from satins and delicate fabric. The first women’s bodice has black markings painted on it, very reminiscent of McQueens earlier work where a white dress was spray painted at a fashion show in 1999. This instantly evokes a sense of pollution, of filth, contrasting to the white dress, as well as the murky river water and the grimy looking bridge surrounding them. They are dominated in the shot by these features, and as the film continues, more and more people enter this landscape. One particularly potent clip, if of a women lying back into the river mud, and making ‘mud angels’, her dress absorbed the filth, and her body getting coated in a thick sheen of silt. When she sits up, the much streams down her chest in rivulets, further contaminating her body. Her hands are slick with brown and her body is sinking into the riverbank.

This film raises a lot of themes that I wish to explore in my own work: contamination, filth, pollution, grime, staining and tainting the things around them. How the figures move through this space is inspirational as well, as there’s this sort of continuous walk towards destruction that’s happening. I also really enjoy the ending, where everyone is gathered under the bridge, in a farce of a picnic happening in the place we hear Victorian mudlarks would have dwelled. It feels like a lazy, somber affair, with all the dark colours and fairly setting. There’s an element of the absurd as well, because of these stark contrasts that are created we tween the clothing and the surroundings.

What I am going to take from this in my practice is inspiration for the setting and themes, with filth and pollution at the core. In addition, I like this strange contrasts created by these beautiful clothes and their surroundings. I like the inclusion of water as well, as something for performers to move through so might perhaps experiment with this.

What I won’t take with me is the scenes of people running with abandon along the riverbanks, and lacking purpose. That is clearly for the fashion film and does not engage with any of my themes.