FILM: THE DOOR OF THE WIND, THE DOORS OF THE RAIN
An earlier film revisited with a new perspective, thinking afresh of the pathway opened up between the worlds by the elements, four fundamental essences, and the story told in George Mackay Brown’s poem ‘Saul Scarth’ in The Wreck of the Archangel (1989).
He’ll be gone through the gray
door of the wind. He must have
drunk the moon bottle, that bright
unchancy stuff, to the last black
drop. I’ve gone myself a thousand
times through the silver doors of the
rain. No lowering of Saul down into the
earth door. He’s unlatched the horizon,
he’s in places further than Longhope or
Leith.
All four elements are here – the wind, the rain, the earth and then the horizon of fire, its whole expanse opened up for a journey.
Selena Kuzman’s film explores the presence of the elements in Orkney – the wind through grass, the rain falling, trees rooted in the earth, and then a slow sunset over the sea.
The old idea of the elements was not so much about simple building blocks from which to build a world, but rather the core essentials of existence. Shifting focus from the world around us to the elements was not so much a reduction of its mystery but rather a probing for pathways to a deeper level, and finding doors to go through.
