Ben Rivers’ movie Things (21 minutes 2014) is shot with such confidence. Shot through with confidence. And this confidence has an energy in it that runs from a deep and subterranean place (the place where Julie Murray finds her butterflies, or else the beginnings of growth in I Began To Wish…). It is an affirmation of roots (a looking back, a retrospective) in service of discovery, of moments newly awakened. It’s a kind of clearing (it clears away the inessential, the distractions). It refuses the place of not-enoughness (which leads to cover ups and camouflages, overworking the pics in my case), which is also the place of “the core story” (the story that I never stop telling myself, in myriad versions) (which leads me to overstuff my movies with events, as if to cover over fundamental feelings of inadequacy – and of course these feelings are communicated to the viewer just like the other feelings that Ben communes with.) Ben’s Things is also a picture of that rooted confidence, and by sharing it, he makes it possible for each of its viewers. Step inside, there’s lot of room in here, the movie seems to say, in its fulsome generosity. And we did.
