Hiraeth

Infobox Film | name = Hiraeth

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caption = Frame 21192
director = Graham Bowers
producer = Graham Bowers
music = Côr Meibion y Traeth
cinematography = Graham Bowers
editing = Graham Bowers
distributor = Red Wharf (DVD)
released = 2005
runtime = 15 min.
language = no dialogue
imdb_id = 0862937

"Hiraeth" is a short film by Graham Bowers. "Hiraeth" is a Welsh word that has no direct English translation; an approximation would be the longing, or yearning for home. The title, the visuals and the music were all part of one original thought and idea, where the focus on one aspect was intrinsically tied to the others in an amorphous matrix of feelings.

The visual footage is of a locked-off shot of a view looking out to sea through a window in a house situated on a hillside in Anglesey. Over a period of 24 hours, every two hours, eight minutes of film was taken. This was then edited down to fifteen minutes in length; the result is a continually changing landscape, the progression of change being barely discernible. (similar to watching the minute hand on a clock)

The content of the visual image is intended to work on many levels, primarily an ever-changing snapshot that invites the viewer to take time to ‘sit and stare’ and to absorb the beauty of all the elements, and how their respective scales of change alter the fixed image and our emotive responses to them.

For example, the petunia in the foreground is both interesting in scale, movement and structural fragility. There is a similarity of the relationship between this small insignificant flower and the massiveness of the sea and sky to that of mankind and the world at large. The speed and erratic movement of the flower head responding to the eddying wind currents is similar to the way mankind reacts to the ever increasing pressures of his own making in the form of ephemeral social systems that come and go and are as invisible as the wind itself, and largely go unnoticed by in the relatively timeless scale of the history of the sea and the sky. It is also a symbol of mankind’s presence within the overall scheme of things, as are the tired looking roses and other domestic garden plants in the near foreground, and hence the comparison to structural fragility. The fields and the trees in the near to middle distance illustrate another level of scale, although each blade of grass and every leaf is responding to the wind as is the petunia, because of the distance from the viewpoint of the human eye, all that can be seen is a much gentler overall action, a resultant of all the parts, which to the casual viewer doesn’t truly represent the actual magnitude of scale. The detail is not considered because it cannot be seen.

Analogies of this type can be applied to all the other aspects and natural phenomena within the continually changing land-sea-sky-scape. The relentless power of the rising and falling tide, the power of the unseen wind and pressure illustrating their presence in the movement of the changing cloud patterns and cover, which in turn dictate the levels of ambient light and temperature.

The soundtrack consists of three songs, Myfanwy, Abide With Me, an excerpt from Wrth Afonydd Babilon sung by the Welsh male voice choir Côr Meibion y Traeth, with two short intentionally quiet, digitally treated piano sections, that complement the vocals and evoke the sentiments of the title and draw the viewer into the overall mood of the work.

"Hiraeth" premiered at the Cardiff Film Festival in 2005, and was exhibited in Galeri Caernarfon as part of the 2005 Harlech Biennale.

External links

* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/music/sites/graham_bowers/ BBC Wales Graham Bowers]
* [http://www.cardiffscreenfestival.co.uk/ 2005 Cardiff Screen Festival]
* [http://www.red-wharf.com Red Wharf]
* [http://www.harlech-biennale.co.uk/ Harlech Biennale]