My Tears are Dry (2009) by Laida Lertxundi
2009, 16mm, 4 minutes, color, sound
USA/Spain
a film by Laida Lertxundi
“Laida Lertxundi’s My Tears Are Dry is something of a coda to her wonderful 2008 film Footnotes to a House of Love. It is a haiku-like sunshiny Southern California riff on Bruce Baillie’s classic All My Life, with a towering palm tree instead of the brambling roses. But the simple, yet elegant, skyward tilt at the end is still there. As with her earlier film, Lertxundi is concerned with the feeling of a location. She creates an off-hand, casual tone that is both comfortable and slightly on edge. The effect is gentler here, but the cross-cutting at the beginning between a woman sprawled on a bed playing snippets of the 1961 Hoagy Landis song “My Tears Are Dry” on a portable cassette deck and a woman plucking discordantly on a guitar sets up an uneasy tension (a slight nod to the “Dueling Banjos” in Deliverance?). It’s the experimental film equivalent of lo-fi pop.” — Patrick Friel, Senses of Cinema
Synopsis: A film in the three parts of a dialectic. Hoagy Land’s song is played and interrupted as guitar makes sound, two women, a bed an armchair, and the beautiful outside. After Bruce Baillie’s All My Life. The lyrics of the song reference the eternal sunshine of California and its promises.
Un film de tres partes en movimiento dialéctico. La canción de Hoagy Lands se escucha y se ve interrumpida por los sonidos de una guitarra, dos mujeres, una cama un sillón y la belleza exterior. El contenido de la canción, Se me han secado las lágrimas, hace referencia al eterno sol de California y sus promesas. En referencia a la obra All My Life the Bruce Baillie.
Camera, editing, directing: Laida Lertxundi
Sound: Laida Lertxundi, Lucas Quigley
Music: Laura Steenberge, Hoagy Lands
Cast: Tanya Rubbak, Laura Steenberge
Location: Los Angeles, California