“Bold in both form and intention”

At what point does a piece of art become the property of the public, at least as far as interpretation and meaning are concerned? Some believe that once an artist has allowed their work to be seen by others, they are essentially handing it over to them for their own individual consumption and enabling them to bring their own perspective and find meaning where it perhaps wasn’t initially intended. Others believe that it occurs only once the dominant perspectives at the time it was created have shifted, from which point it can be filtered through an entirely different social and cultural lens. It’s a vague and often challenging concept, and one that doesn’t have a clear answer despite us initially thinking otherwise. Thomas Woodroffe seems fascinated by this ambiguity, since he uses it as the basis for Erratics, his incredibly strange and unquestionably hypnotic debut in which he takes aim at the perpetual desire for us to assert meaning onto absolutely everything, while also in the process trying to come to terms with his own understanding of artistic expression as more than just a vessel for creativity, but instead also a means through which one can observe aspects of life that aren’t always clear in reality. A brilliant blend of genres and styles, Erratics is constructed as a multimodal examination of creativity from various fascinating angles, in an effort to comment on the process of interpretation and how it can often entirely change how a piece of art is perceived and appreciated.

The director certainly understands that the first step to persuading the audience to become invested in any film, especially one that is as unconventional as Erratics, is to have a simple but strong concept from which the story can be constructed. We are introduced to Lucien Castelnau, a fictional director from the silent era who is rediscovered by some researchers in an archive when they come across a film he made a hundred years earlier titled La Terre de Feu, a documentary about the last remaining members of an indigenous community in Patagonia. As a result of being momentarily plucked out of obscurity, the director emerges as a ghost, quietly observing the process of his work being rediscovered and subsequently reworked through interpretation by a group of scholars. Woodroffe uses this peculiar premise as a starting point for what gradually reveals itself to be a layered exploration of art as a medium that is constantly evolving in terms of meaning, since what was seen as revolutionary and provocative at the time can now be considered outdated and regressive – yet, the art remains the same, with the people who consume it changing as time progresses. It’s a subject that requires an abundance of nuance, and the director is very much invested in the process of dismantling common perceptions around the way art is perceived, using it as a means to start an invigorating and provocative discussion on the often contentious way art is interpreted over time. It comments on whether universality of meaning is actually possible, making some bold assumptions on the often prickly relationship between past and present perceptions of the same works.  

While this is his feature-length debut as a director, Woodroffe is certainly not a newcomer to the industry, having occupied a number of positions behind the scenes, including as a cinematographer and editor. This is evident in his attention to detail, with the visual component of Erratics being just as well-conceived and thoughtful as the very challenging story that surrounds it. It does require some active participation from the audience, at least in terms of being open and willing to embrace the often unconventional elements of a story that is designed to keep the viewer at a slight distance, since it is in that separation between the artwork and us that we find some of the most fascinating observations can be made. There isn’t an abundance of plot in Erratics. It introduces its core premise as a means for us to situate ourselves amongst some of these more abstract ideas, which then ultimately begin to take over as the film progresses, becoming less about the narrative and more focused on the exciting work that goes into the atmosphere. Visually, the film pays fascinating tribute to landmark ethnographic films like Nanook of the North and In the Land of the Head Hunters, which set out to preserve the customs and traditions of groups of indigenous people whose numbers were waning as a result of the rapidly encroaching modern world. It is exceptionally well-crafted, with the director’s attention to detail being remarkable, creating an immersive sensory experience that offers much more than we may have expected based on just the premise behind the film.

To usher in some of these more unconventional ideas, the director enlists a small but vibrant cast to bring Erratics to the screen, which is certainly not an easy task considering the breadth of themes being explored. This ultimately begs the question: what would cinema be like without Denis Lavant? It most certainly would’ve been slightly less unorthodox than it has been since he first unleashed his remarkable gifts on the industry. His willingness to push himself in pursuit of the deeper truths behind a character (as well as his tendency to lend his talents to novice directors) means that he is always captivating on screen. In this film, he takes on quite a different set of challenges, playing a filmmaker who has to reckon with his place in history. There is a significant amount of physicality required (which is likely why Lavant was cast in the first place), but the brilliance comes from the fact that he is actually absent from the screen for a significant amount of time. Long stretches of his performance are done entirely through voiceover, his distinctive timbre having the perfect blend of gravitas and curiosity that was required to bring this part to life on screen. The work being done by the ensemble of indigenous actors (who are the inverse of Lavant, their performances being almost entirely wordless and dependent entirely on physical cues) occupies almost the entirety of the final act of the film, many of them drawn from the native community of Patagonia. It lends the film the required amount of authenticity that can only come from handing this story to those who are most well-equipped to interpret the underlying themes that make this such a fascinating work.

We’ve asked many questions throughout this discussion, which is not surprising considering Erratics is precisely the kind of film that provokes intense thought, forcing the viewer to ponder the nature of not only art and history, but existence as a whole. It takes a relatively intimate, simple subject and forms it into something much deeper and more complex, an expansive existential odyssey that finds common connections between the past, present and future. It is an indication of the director’s wholehearted belief that these are not three distinct temporal entities, but instead all interwoven in unconventional ways that we can never truly understand in their entirety. As the audience, we are invited to take this journey with the director and his cohorts, who are very much aware of the challenges that enshroud this film. Nonetheless, they are willing to take the opportunity to explore a topic that exists at the intersection between artistic expression and historical observation, one influencing the other in ways that prove to be quite surprising the further we become enraptured in this fascinating curio of a film. Woodroffe demonstrates remarkable skill throughout this film, developing a strange and unconventional film that blurs the boundaries between genres, as well as fact and fiction, using his simple but intriguing premise as the foundation for an endlessly ambitious statement on the process of looking at art as not merely creativity made tangible, but as a record of humanity, often in its purest and most confrontational form. Bold in both form and intention, we find that Erratics is the rare kind of film that makes less sense the more we attempt to understand it, a work of art that has to be experienced more than it is entirely understood.