Vela
Laila Pakalniņa
Latvia | 1991 | 10 min
Language : no dialogue
Every day a man delivers laundry to a children’s hospital and faces life and death. Can life and death be every day? “I wanted to make a film about life, to do this I had to show death: that is why we visited a children’s hospital.” (LP)
Every day a man delivers clean linen to a children’s hospital. It is then processed, selected, transported. The whole world seems to turn around the laundry. We observe all the phases at a constant pace, through the inventive camera work and from multiple points of view. A few shots of children at the windows remind us of the nature of the place we are. Soon, following the laundry, we develop a feeling of deep empathy. “I wanted to make a film about life. So I needed to show death, but I didn’t want to show people dying. We went to a children’s hospital and said to ourselves – we are not going to enter this hospital to show the face of suffering. It must be possible to feel everything even staying outside.” Laila Pakalnina
