A Map of the New World2014

When you make a film, or really, create anything at all, you spend much more time making it than people will spend watching it. Every moment is something you have to think up. The result is that some very very subtle things will have meaning that is glaringly obvious to you, but are totally meaningless to your viewers. That's where this project goes wrong. It's abstraction, while mildly aesthetic, is honestly not terribly visually stimulating, and fails to effectively communicate a clear message once underway. Which is too bad, because I think the theme of the film is important. Indeed, presenting an issue as weighty as the colonialist demarcation of land in the Pacific Northwest in such abstract terms doesn't challenge the presumptions of the viewer, but instead leaves each viewer to fill this film with imagined meanings, ultimately affirming their own preexisting stereotypes.