Series of Dreams Interwoven by Ringing Bells

Prolific video essay duo Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin urge us to ponder the pensive states evoked by bells, the entrancing qualities of the carillon, in this long video essay. They composed their soundtrack (and video essay) using scenes by no more than five filmmakers (Andrei Tarkovsky, Ingmar Bergman, Robert Bresson, Luis Buñuel and Sergei Parajanov) but managed to include clips from twenty films. That in itself proves the deep artistic connection those filmmakers have with the tolling bell, and the symbolic meanings they assign to it.

 

There is more to this seemingly simple supercut than meets the ear. The editing deftly uses recurring visual motifs in the cited films to weave together a tight tapestry that plays up the oneiric qualities of these movie scenes and sounds. The (almost) complete absence of dialogue reinforces the quality of reverie that is present in all these excerpts, and forces us to focus our ears on the subtly varying chimes of all of the featured bells.