carmo - “The River, the Shore”
This short film projects our current political trajectory onto an imagined London 8 years in the future. Here fascism, chauvinism, surveillance, and the growing inequality have been left to run their course. The protagonist, invited to "meet the board" grapples with cognitive dissonance and guilt as they move from deprivation to affluence, leaving principle and true progress behind. A dialectic between the oppressed and their oppressors plays out in the urban environment where dereliction and radical graffiti counter propagandistic billboards and stark modern architecture. The full weight of the character's internal moral conflict come home to roost as the film spirals into a nightmarish vision. Once the veil has been lifted, as we all are, the protagonist is faced with a choice, to fight it, or become it.
No Generative AI was used in any way, at any stage for the creation of this work.
Verse I
I hear the horses
And the fire brigade
The laughter of children
And the silence it makes
That baritone thunder
And the forest it razed
We're all heading down river
In a shivering blaze
Post-Chorus 1
Tell me, was it?
Worth your Soul?
Verse II
But don't look past the small print
You'll miss a sick serenade
To the gods that we worship
And every twist in her blade
And the banks that we dance on
Reek of debts yet to pay
But the grounds getting hungry
Why'd you give it a taste?
Bridge
Traded our place in the sun
For a fable
Sold by the servants of Satan
Now everything's turning unstable
Everything's turning…
Verse III
I hear the horses
And the fire brigade
The laughter of children
And the violence it makes
So won't you come and carry us away
If we're not built for better days
If we're not built…