memories of rain
imagine the sun burning a vast land
imagine yourself obliterated by light
rescued by the outlines of horizon
in space so big that it becomes clear to you
how fragile life is
memories of rain
fire and water
under the earth there is rain
20 000 year old rain water
can bring life to a desert
memories of rain
earth perfumes and steaming land
walking across a desert plain
I felt that I was walking inside myself
I felt that inside and outside had become confused
from this grew a desire to tell a story of deserts and rain
physics of human life with land and water
physics of states of being
where human beings may face the challenge:
how do I live with my desert?
Taste of Rain : Driving through the Namib is something I love. I wrote Taste of Rain from experience of no rain in Namibia. It was still a dry drought struck Namib. Space and light and bare earth of sand and rock and light and great emptinesses. By the time I was preparing to film there were few locations left like that. The sometimes cruel beauty of the Namib was blooming with waving stretches of yellow grass deep into horizons. The rains came and came over years. Namibia's deserts flowered. And here I was looking for bits of desert that look like desert, that could tell the story. It created a considerable archive of Namibscapes and farmhouses, ruins, traces of human lives from Bergsig to Aus. There are many reasons why people make films. One of mine was that a mission of looking for desert in the time of rain over years did bring me to landscapes that spoke of earth without water, life drying up.
Imagine the history of cinema - the human energies and desires tied up into this magical project that allows humans to mirror the experience of being alive back to themselves as moving images and sound travelling through time on a flat surface.
So many reasons for making films can be found in the history of cinema.
When the going gets rough the rough gets going and you realise you need to have a good reason to do this stuff. You need to find a way to keep connected to the inner neccessity that drives you. My great good fortune is that I found that inner neccessity in the beauty of the desert and the beauty of the people who continued to believe in me and in this story, Who made this film with me. Flowers in the desert, dancing together to side step the hyenas and the demons.
