The following text is an excerpt from the seventh volume of the Viennale's ongoing TEXTUR series, each edition of which is devoted to the atmospheric craft of a single filmmaker with a close connection to the festival. TEXTUR #7 focuses on the films of Roberto Minervini.
Low Tide (Roberto Minervini, 2012).
He wheels his bike through the arid, scorching hot Texan landscape, pausing at the sight of a brown snake gliding over the cracks in the dry soil. He puts the bike down and walks cautiously towards the snake as she attempts to slide down into one of the cracks. Kneeling, he carefully tugs at the snake’s tail with the fingertips of both hands, once, twice, until her head reappears from the hole. He gently holds the snake in his palms, stroking her head with his index finger. He arranges his body into a more comfortable cross-legged position, placing the snake over his bruised legs. His fingertip sits under her chin. He then puts her down next to him, moving out of her path and watching while she slithers away, attempting to escape into a crack she doesn’t fit into before eventually finding one she does, disappearing underground.
An hour later, he’s lying in bed at night, hovering between sleep and games. He’s interrupted by the loud crash of his mother falling through the front door headfirst, coughing, passed out. He runs towards her, attempting to turn the weight of her unconscious body, shaking her arm before placing it over his small shoulder and dragging her towards the unmade mattress which, thankfully, isn’t in its bed frame. He slides her across the floorboards as he continues trying to wake her up, “Mom, Mom!” He takes hold of her arms, pulling them above her head, dragging her dead weight a little further. Her head falls limp onto the side of the mattress as he stops to gather his strength. He once again places her arm over his shoulder and finally pulls her as far up on the bed as possible. Her feet balance over the edge as he softly slides her socks off. Exhausted, out of breath, he lays down next to her, stroking her hair, moving it out of her face with his index finger.
In the hour between his contact with the snake and the encounter with his unconscious mother, he fills his time by communicating with various fauna, showing no distinction between violence and tenderness: he taps his fingers on the murky window of a camper van, interacting through the glass with the two confined cats that long for touch; he seems unfazed when watching a cow being shot to death at a butcher’s, only covering his ears to protect them from the bang of the rifle; he stops on his way home to play with two small frogs, allowing them to crawl over his body as he strokes their backs, removing the tiny twig stuck between one of their legs; he returns home and fills up the paddling pool before the blank TV screen. Once filled, he empties a plastic bag containing three goldfish into it, then cautiously joins them in the water, allowing them to glide in and around his hands, observing, curious.
His final interspecies encounter comes after various attempts at fishing. He eventually catches one, places her on a rock and stabs her twice, staring at her as she slowly disappears, her gills fluttering. It is a precursor of what he will later do to himself. The only way left to get the attention he needs and desires from his mother is to do the worst imaginable.
This is all part of an ongoing process of reflection, on the lengths that we all go to in order to find connection with other beings, and to our mothers in particular: covering their naked bodies with a blanket as they sleep, embracing their tattooed wings in the shallow water, using recording devices as intermediaries so as to listen and converse without intense arguments, re-enacting moments shared. If they disappear before us, we are left going through their belongings, however few or many, trying to decipher our bond.
