In Suspensao/Poise a man lies on a on bed as flies swarm over him. He, along with the furniture and everything in his room except the flies and one red flower in a vase are transparent. Each movement splits off from stillness to overlap. Another person sits in a chair, watching out the window. Outside, people are stuck in short loops, pressing a walk button, clenching a fist, trying to start the car, over and over again. The man on the bed catches the flies, but they live on in his fist. The sitting person and the outsiders glitch, slip out of the loop in multiple overlapping directions. The red flower looms.

Wordless, moody, long shots and dissolves repeat and repeat until the viewer feels as stuck as the flies, as the jogger at the crosswalk, as the man in the bed. The flower somehow looms.

Is there meaning to this spindly animation? A meditation of futility? Of repetition, of time itself? Or just an experiment with an odd style?

Or … hear me out … an over-developed pun on “Time Flies”? Does that pun even work in Portuguese?

Suspensao/Poise is currently playing at Slamdance 2021.

6 out of 10 Immortal Time Flies