The Sun and the Moon

‘The Sun and the Moon, a film fairy tale, is about two women’s terrifying encounter with ‘Otherness’ in the form of a man, abject and monstrous, and for them to either to witness, accept or partake in his annihilation. All are caught in their own isolation and are fearful of the menace that has to be met. The film, as a personal interpretation of Beauty and the Beast, enciphers concerns, beliefs and desires in seductive images that are themselves a form of camouflage, making it possible to utter harsh truths.’
That is Stephen Dwoskin’s short description of his own latest film. A film that seeks a middle path between feature, an essay in form and light, and the biographical notes and the echoes of the well-known fairy tale. In this film the images are made first and foremost by Dwoskin, with the assistence of four different camera women, who are also film makers in their own right. In view of the fact that Dwoskin is increasingly housebound because of his handicap, this is some kind of enforced domestic cinema: an excessive video film in which the maker does not spare himself. Short of breath, lengthy pants, in the absence of the spoken word. How do the women relate to that strange man in that house? And are the many slow motion images possibly a metaphor? Or a litteral attempt to slow down time, to stretch it, to abolish it? (EH)

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