A Brilliant and Sublime Experience: A Journey into the History of a Life

Review of the short film Ubi Sunt, directed by Natalia Jezova

The common notion that sound is of lesser importance than image has long since lost credibility among serious film enthusiasts. Many great films in the history of cinema, particularly over the past few decades, have demonstrated that sound can, at times, matter more than what we see; it can alter the meaning of what we see, and can generally convey information and mental images that objective visuals alone are incapable of providing. Take, for example, The Zone of Interest, which dealt with the harrowing events of the death camps of the Second World War. In the images themselves we see nothing remarkable beyond the ordinary, even cheerful domestic life of the family of a high-ranking officer living near one of these camps. Yet although we never see the camps, we imagine every event with perfect clarity, because the sound design by Johnnie Burn includes the continuous roar of the crematoria, distant gunshots, screams, and the howling of trains. These painful sounds stand in absolute contrast to the lush, peaceful imagery of the house, creating the most devastating tragic effect. We should note that without these sounds, we would be watching an entirely different film.

The short film Ubi Sunt, directed by Dr. Natalia Jezova, is one of those works that grants sound an exceptional position. In this intensely experimental piece, an even more radical approach is taken: there is no visual variety at all. In such a work, every single decision by the director, every detail of the film, assumes double importance. The filmmaker deliberately strips away various elements in order to get closer to her intended meaning. The minimalism of works such as Ubi Sunt is therefore significant: it is not merely a formal exercise, but a minimalism placed in the service of imagery.

The film opens on a white image — yet not a pure white frame. The darkened corners make it resemble a projection screen. The sound we hear is distant music, particularly the tone of a wind instrument. But this sound is distorted by another: what seems to be the rumble of a train or a heartbeat. This very ambiguity in identifying the nature of the sound, this interference of one sound with another, is already a sign of the filmmaker’s intention to move toward uncertainty, toward conceptual complexity.

Suddenly both image and sound cut out, and we see the first — and only — image of the film: a frame containing a window at its centre, a frame within a frame. In the inner frame (the window) an indistinct landscape appears, because a curtain stirred by the wind hangs before it. From the slow movement of the curtain we understand that we are watching a slow-motion image, yet the sound we hear — the cry of a newborn — keeps its normal rhythm. The quality of the baby’s cry quickly transforms into the sound of a wind instrument; because of the high pitch of the note being played, it feels like a continuation of the infant’s voice. One sound has become another. One may interpret the baby’s cry as belonging to the reality of that room — the room whose window and exterior view we are observing — yet one cannot say with certainty that the cry belongs to this precise moment. Thus times intermingle. The sound may belong to the memory of someone sitting in this room, looking out of the window. The decision to slow the image helps to strengthen this impression.

The sounds may be that of the observer’s own childhood, or perhaps a memory of their own child when the kid was a newborn. From the very beginning, therefore, the spectator senses the passage of time. Even if the viewer does not analytically separate every sound and sonic sign, the combination of those sounds and what we see on the screen produces a feeling of time’s passage. The trumpet becomes the dominant music — it is not ambient sound, not something emanating from a source within the film (such as a radio) that a character is hearing. Rather, because of its quality and its placement on the soundtrack, it occupies a different status from the baby’s cry. It is as if the expression of the character’s feeling, or the feeling of the moment itself, is being voiced by the director: a formal choice, like camera angle or the use of slow motion, employed to convey the atmosphere of the instant.

Interwoven with the music, a bird’s song can be heard. This sound is presumably intended to represent the reality of the scene — the reality outside this window, beyond this curtain, flowing through the city. We accept it because the quality of the sound matches the vague landscape visible beyond the window, which resembles a green, tree-filled expanse or maybe even a grove. The embroidered curtain sways gently in the breeze, and outside the house is bright in contrast to the interior. The play of shadows from trees and buildings across the curtain reinforces the sense of isolation and of looking from within outward. Is the person sitting here remembering the good and bad days of the past? We recall the film’s title, a Latin phrase. Ubi Sunt means “Where are they?” — or, in a more literary rendering, “Where are those who were before us?” The director, Natalia Jezova, has known precisely how to use this title so that, without being overly direct, it clearly points to the film’s intended meaning. The title evokes the sense of time’s passage, of the loss of the moment, of the transience of beauty, music, and freshness. For a moment it brings us the beautiful sound of a newborn’s cry — a sign of birth, of hope — and a moment later the sound vanishes completely, as if the clamour of life swallows that beauty and that birth.

Amid the murmur of a crowd that seems to be seated in a restaurant, the sound of a train is heard. The filmmaker continually forces us to revise our assumptions about what the sounds are. Thus, when the train sound follows immediately after the hubbub of people, we realize that the space was probably not a restaurant but a railway waiting hall. The sound of the train, like a current that carries us into the depths of a history, covers all the other sounds with its presence. Then music is heard once more, this time as if coming from a source inside the train — from a radio. We note that the director is, through the architecture of sounds, effectively telling us a story, yet a story that, by the deliberate elimination of elements, is narrated solely through mental images. This means that the director knows exactly which sound should appear when, and with what quality. Thus we accept the first music as the film’s own score, and the second as the music of the train scene. The third piece of music, because of its stylistic difference, actually functions as a spatial transition: the person who was on the train has now reached their destination and, during that journey or at that place, has gone to a concert where such music is being performed. The director introduces us to the atmosphere of that place through the type of music, or through the use of a female soloist. Even the distinction between classical music and jazz therefore forms part of the storytelling.

When we reach the middle part of the film, once the filmmaker has established the basis of her narrative, it is time to move toward the tensions of the story. Thus the sounds of battle, of war, of turmoil reach our ears — harsh, full of static, as if from one of the radio conversations of the front lines. A telephone rings, the footsteps of someone walking through a house, and a woman’s voice saying “Hello.” Yet the reference to war remains this brief, and once again various sounds interrupt one another until, at last, a man’s voice, as if on the radio, announces that the war is over. The end of the war is accompanied by classical music and again a combination of different sounds. The flow of life set against the undeniable presence of war. A war causing devastations that are not hard to imagine.

Without giving us any details about her central character, without even telling us which particular history she is narrating, the filmmaker takes us into the heart of events. And this is the most important quality of this brilliant short film: that it sets our minds and imaginations to work and makes us participants in the act of imagining the film. Upon this black-and-white image of a window looking onto a landscape, from within this dark room, anyone can be the observer of this scene. Anyone can be part of this historical experience. Anyone can, by remembering the past, return to concert halls and crowded restaurants and railway waiting rooms, to the moment of a child’s birth, to the moment of hearing the announcement that a war has ended (for every human being has most likely once witnessed the end of a war), and in this shared experience, imagine a history. With remarkable skill the filmmaker employs this experimental method of involving every spectator in the reconstruction of memories through sound. From the cry of a newborn to the terrifying toll of a bell, the film’s narrator sees everything: birth and death, hope and war, terror and peace. In the final moments, after the prolonged beep familiar to the relatives of the deceased — a sound that recalls the hospital and the anxiety of last moments — for a few seconds the image of a smiling woman appears in the window frame. Yet it is like a mental image that someone sunk in thought might see.

Ubi Sunt ends as it began, like a cycle, and in between the spectator has been taken on a profound journey. Although the film is short, the quality of the experience it offers can remain with the viewer for a long time. We have been invited to share in a rich experience — a world conveyed to us in the most minimal form possible. Ubi Sunt is a film that is unique and outstanding; the director knows how to use its tools, how to narrate, and how to make the spectator’s mind a participant in the creation of her work.