The opening credits of María Silvia Esteve’s new film could hardly be more succinct and accurate in preparing you for what you are about to witness. On-screen text ‘welcomes you into… The Spiral.’ This notion of being inside the film is perhaps the best way of imagining Esteve’s sensory, experimental short, which runs at 20 minutes in length and premiered this week as part of the Director’s Fortnight in Cannes. In a similar vein to how the filmmaker’s previous film, Criatura, was described as an inward journey towards the protagonist’s pain, so The Spiral seeks to replicate and communicate the experience of health anxiety.
The film begins with a black screen accompanied by a WhatsApp audio message which seems innocuous enough at first, but quickly takes a distressing turn: “I am completely spiralling, and I can’t get out.” What follows is an avalanche of different aesthetic and aural combinations that both disorientate and transfix the viewer. One sequence sees a clipping of archival film, in which a young girl argues with her reflection in a mirror, projected within a shadowy space – the sly undermining of bodily autonomy just the first inkling of being betrayed by your own physical form. Later, a voice in the dark suggests that your hands are tingling, and its difficult not to feel them start.
Visually, circles, spirals, and radial patterns recur in all manner of different forms. In one instance, repeated all-seeing eyes fill the screen and seem to emanate pulsing energy while a confessional voice describes being labelled as overreactive and hypersensitive as a child. On other occasions, a disembodied soul drifts through a forest, coloured by a blood-red filter. In its most spectacular moment, the screen is consumed by a swirling, polychrome spiral. Each of these sections evokes a bodily response on their own merit but strung together, they have an irresistible cumulative effect. By the time The Spiral begins to question the sanctity and safety of one’s home, its nigh on impossible not to have begun to question your trust in your own body.
Director, screenplay, editor, sound, animation: María Silvia Esteve
Cast: Emma Isabella, Richard Townley, Viveca Paoli, María Silvia Esteve
Production company: Rita Cine, Hana Films (Argentina)
Venue: Quinzaine des Réalisateurs, Cannes (Competition)
In English, Swedish
20 minutes
