Light in Darkness (Helena Ignez, Icaro Martins, 2010): Brazil

Reviewed by Katie Funk. Viewed at Metro 4, Santa Barbara.

Light in Darkness (Lus Nas Trevas) directed by Helena Ignez and Icaro Martins.

“As the candle consumes the flame.

The cigarette consumes the smoker.”

To live life chasing the feeling of being alive your own life can be lost.

A light can be lost before the flame even goes out.

Burning embers, the wax is almost completely melted.

When there is no more fuel what happens to the fire?

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“To blow up the world a revolted man closes his eyes.”

Imprisoned souls close their eyes and freedom will arise.

One can pretend that the prison walls have fallen

But once their eyes open again the walls are back again.

Freedom is within the mind.

Breaking yourself free can only be done in your mind.

You could be a free man walking yet still caging yourself from within.

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“Ignoring your guide even as you follow it.

Once you’ve accomplished this, you have arrived.”

One man follows a guide he does not know or understand.

Leading him to the place where he can be found.

Yet he chases the guide, giving his guide more attention than himself.

A guide he never knew but emulates as himself.

He becomes the guides old self instead of the man the guide had become.

He lost himself and he never even knew who his self was before he lost it.

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The guide, however, saw all of this coming.

Saying such inspiring quotes such as these.

As his own son walks down the pathway he believed

His dad would have been proud of.

Yet his dad was within prison walls all the while learning to free his own mind.

As his son sat on freedom’s doorstep putting up bar after bar to his own cage.

Not once understanding, not once attempting to see the truth.

He became lost.

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A flame without its candle.

A cigarette without its smoker.

A fire without its fuel.