CORPUS CALLOSUM is an experimental cinematic triptych about bondage, imprisonment and the terror of freedom. Framed by existing works of confessional and concrete poetry, it traces the haunting tensions between a masked jailor and his prisoner. The film’s 3 chapters were shot guerilla-style over the course of 3 years across the dense metropolises, forests, beaches, deserts and charred highlands of the U.S. state of California and Lebanon. CHAPTER 1: FOUR WALLS (PRELUDE) As the sun sets in the charred highlands, a masked, androgynous beast unravels to reveal a bound and gagged woman (the Prisoner) inside. Shot in Shadow Hills, California and set to The Pixies' "Wave of Mutilation," slowed down to 80%. This dance was originally performed as part of DEAR ARMEN, an audience-interactive theater experience based on the memoirs of early-20th century gender-bending Armenian performer and poet, Armen Ohanian. CHAPTER 2: THE JAILOR Sylvia Plath's THE JAILOR is visualized as the veiled Prisoner's account of her escape from her masked Jailor's cruelty. His lair is the forest, and her prison is the beach. Set to the original manuscript of Sylvia Plath's poem of the same name, THE JAILOR was spontaneously shot over the course of 3 days as we drove out from our native Los Angeles and up the California Coast toward San Francisco. With nothing but 2 cameras, a trunk full of various fabrics and objects, and Plath's words to guide us, we relied solely on serendipitous shifts in light, weather, environment and our own moods. Nothing was scripted and no location scouting was done--everything and anything that came across our path was fair game to be filmed. CHAPTER 3: THE SEA (EPILOGUE) We pick back up with the Prisoner as she tries to adjust to the world outside her prison: Los Angeles. This is the vast, indulgent, web-like Los Angeles in its idealized form, but also the Los Angeles that, as imagined by generations of writers and filmmakers, is the epicenter of our inevitable apocalypse. Tangled knots of freeways, gated suburban communities with manicured exteriors, cars in place of people...the Prisoner is overwhelmed by this excess and begins to hallucinate all of this in a state of decay. She is haunted by a collection of spirit animals, flashing through her periphery as she frantically tries to find her way back to the beach--where she, despite being imprisoned, felt stable. But the sprawl of Los Angeles deceives her, and she emerges through a lush forest onto a swimming pool patio embedded into a hillside, where she leaps into the water and drowns--only to emerge moments later, phoenix-like, and truly free. Shot in Los Angeles, the Angeles National Forest, on the banks of the Salton Sea and in Bombay Beach in California, and in and around Beirut, Lebanon. // DIRECTION // Anahid Yahjian and Armen Harootun COMPOSITION AND SOUND // Armen Bazarian / Apollo Studios PERFORMANCE (FOUR WALLS + THE SEA) // Kamee Abrahamian SOUND DESIGN (THE JAILOR) // Daenen Bramberger 'WAVES OF MUTILATION" // Performed by the Pixies / Frank Black THE JAILOR // Sylvia Plath ZUVERSPAETCETERANDFIGURINNESNNENSWERT OLLOS // Ferdinand Kriwet LIFE // Decio Pignatari
