SOPHIE'S PLACE
LAWRENCE JORDAN
•
1h 18m
Fully hand-painted cut-out animation and the culmination of five years' work. Totally unplanned, unrehearsed development of scenes under the camera (yet with more "continuity" than any of the previous Lawrence Jordan films) this "alchemical autobiography" meditates on a few phase of the life of the filmmaker. The film begins in a paradisiacal garden and then proceeds to the interior of the Mosque of St. Sophia. More and more, SOPHIE'S PLACE develops into episodes centering around one form or another of Sophia, an early Greek and Gnostic embodiment of spiritual wisdom. She is seen emanating light waves and symbolic objects.
[The filmmaker emphasizes that he does not know the exact significance of any of the symbols in the film any more than he knows the meaning of his dreams nor does he know the meanings of any of the episodes. He hopes that the symbols and the episodes set-off poetic associations in the viewer. He intends them to be entirely open to the interpretations of the viewers.]
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