Director: Yann les Jours
Running time: 2mins
Sonnet is one of the simplest films I have ever received with Indy Film Library, which is also going to make it one of the biggest challenges to actually talk about.
It composes entirely of a single, unbroken shot, peering over the shoulder of boxer Mara Havránek, as she unleashes a barrage of haymakers upon an unsuspecting punching bag. Every 10 to 15 seconds, Havránek’s coach calls upon the class to pause, and rotate round the room, walking to the next poor bag to rain fury on.
It is in this moments of transition, that returning director Yann les Jours finds a space to allow us to think and feel. To gage the mood and rhythm of the room – and maybe to apply it to our own lives.
We live in a world where we seem to be almost relentlessly on the defence: we have to hold our ground in our work – from recruitment, to probation, to quarterly review – while contending with rising costs of living, predatory landlords or mortgage brokers, and tending to the needs of our loved ones. But just as important as our strength in those moments where we are throwing punches, is the fact that we must find moments of peace between, to think, to plan, or just to recharge.
The training session falls into a pattern, befitting of its name, then. A sonnet is a fixed poetic form, which delivers a structure of a certain number of beats per line – most famously, but not exclusively, including an iambic pentameter rhyming structure – and featuring shifts in tone around the 8th-12th line. The rhythm of the boxing might loosely fit into this kind of structure, and on top of the usual clichés around the ‘poetry’ of boxing as a spectacle, or of the sport as a kind of meditative space, where the participants can learn something about their mental and physical limits – it ultimately underscores the importance of the peace beyond the storm, without which there is no contrast or opportunity for reflection.
It is here that I have to include my but, though.
As interesting a 90-seconds as the film is, it is just 90 seconds – and an extremely singular 90 seconds at that. As beautiful as the black-and-white digital super 35mm imagery is, it is seemingly welded to the back of Havránek’s head – and the camera work subsequently does not do anything to supply any rhythm of its own. And while the sound does so, just by virtue of recording the pounding of bags and then prolonged moments of heavy-breathing and quiet shuffling, it feels a little lacking in invention, something that might make it a tall ask for some festivals to countenance programming.
With that being said, the fact that it is so short, and the fact that it does allow a kind of meditative punctuation for other films in a programme, might make it the ideal cinematic palate-cleanser for a festival. In the case of Indy Film Library, I think it will be an ideal addition to our annual Experimental selection at the end of the month, and also the Amsterdam cinema event in April.