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CHILD, DOLL, OR BONE
Directed by John Santerineross
Camera - Xavier rodriguezGirl - Priscilla
I wasn't familiar with John Santerineross' photography work until this short film. CHILD, DOLL, OR BONE is filled with so many striking images that I felt the need to seek out his other work, which upon viewing could easily be considered horror. His images are as delightfully macabre as they are hauntingly beautiful. More importantly, Santerineross presents images that are open for interpretation.
CHILD, DOLL, OR BONE is a work where the entire presentation is taken into consideration, even the DVD menus. The short follows a beautiful young girl as she sits in her room. Looking somewhat like a china doll, she appears older than she should considering her clothing, but acts younger than she appears when playing her toys. During the DVD menu, we see this young woman partially nude and it's easy to make the assumption that this girl is of age. If that were the case, wouldn't it be safe to assume that this girl must have some sort of psychological disorder that keeps her in a detached state where her child-like behavior is acceptable?
That picture used for disc menu is extremely disquieting as it immediately evokes implications of pedophilia. This girl-woman fetish having been a long-standing figure in sexual deviancy, the implication of such left me with an extremely uncomfortable vibe. Is that the point of the photograph, to put the audience on edge immediately? To startle viewers into absolute attention from the get-go? Only Santerineross can say for sure.
Regardless, once the implication is out there, it casts a strange sexual shadow over the short film. In the film, the girl, this time appearing with more clothing, awakes from what I can only assume is some sort of daydream or psychological lapse. As she stares off into space, her attention is immediately brought back to reality. She sits in a corner where she then plays peek-a-boo with her teddy bear. By treating the bear like an infant, is this woman-child fixating her own desires onto the bear? Does she truly view the world as a child and does she see the bear as an imaginary friend? Has she had a total mental breakdown?
The girl's room is lined with Rorschach-like paintings. You know the ones that children make by pouring ink onto a page then folding it in half. When re-opened, a picture emerges. These inkblots were later used by psychiatrists in determining a person's mental state. It's possible to view this as another indicator of the girl's mental health. Was she institutionalized at one point?
We quickly learn that this smiling beauty is a "cutter", a person who slices themselves to feel pain. Cutters are generally people who suffer from severe depression. The act represents a person's desire to feel something in a world where they are largely ignored and feel nothing, not even love. When a cutter is feeling pain, they are happy to just feel anything. Was it this possible form of depression that led to the girl's institutionalization?
The girl collects her blood in a vial, and we see that the blood was used to create the Rorschach pictures. The dvd jewel case describes this as sharing the beauty in an act that is otherwise disquieting, but I see it as another indicator of the girl's instability. One way to view the multi-layered metaphor is to see the butterfly-like images of creativity emerging from the ugly (caterpillar) acts of self-loathing. Another is to see the blot-pictures as a projection of the girl's mental instability. She re-creates the only pleasurable memory she carried with her out of a hospital stay, the only moment when she was allowed to let imagination run free. She can be child-like in her responses and never scorned by authoritative figures.
Santerineross has left me with more questions then I care to type, which is what any work of art is supposed to do. Art is subjective and open to interpretation. It raises questions of introspection. The mood created is just as important the image presented. It's highly possible that my take on Santerineross' work is way off base, in which case I would love to hear what he has to say. CHILD, DOLL, OR BONE is itself like a Rorschach test where viewer's minds are able to take away from it what they will.