00:00
499
More
See all Show me
24. The Escape (Chinese Requiem)
2 years ago
images and edit by Vincent Moon
music by Set Fire to Flames & Sylvain Chauveau

China, summer 2004

Likes

See all likes
  • Blake Whitman staff 2 years ago
    beautiful.
  •  
  • Stephen Niebauer staff 2 years ago
    wow.
  •  
  • MariaNYC plus 2 years ago
    OMG this is Soooo good! And what fantastic photography!
  •  
  • Danielle Mulcahy 2 years ago
    those images where so beautiful. i love the texture of the sound too
  •  
  • trev 2 years ago
    awesome
  •  
  • Dr Dimento 2 years ago
    nice presentation. maybe a little wordy on a few screens that could have been covered over two or more but still, quite nice. thanks.
  •  
  • Debra Grieves 2 years ago
    melancholy and beautiful. China is a beautiful but somehow sad place from your pictures.
  •  
  • milli moondingo 2 years ago
    indiscribably beautiful an' hauntin' an' wonderous!
    thank you! ;)*
  •  
  • tritochke 2 years ago
    emotional and spiritual food :)...have no words to describe it...:) cheers !
  •  
  • Ron Amos 2 years ago
    This reminds me of my experience as a Utah farm boy when I went to New York City for the first time in the 1950s.
  •  
  • Ren Bo 2 years ago
    女子
  •  
  • Hache 2 years ago
    Very deep ... thanks
  •  
  • Samu Ainesmaa 2 years ago
    Stellar. I've lived in china for 5 years but it's been 8 years since I move away and I have a very profound desire to re-experience that amazing place.

    I loved the high-contrast, grainy film look of the photos. The music was beyond fantastic and the text narration was very nicely done.

    Liked for sure!
  • Samu Ainesmaa 2 years ago
    Btw, I'd be curious to know the names of the two songs, as both artist have quite a bit of songs :)
  •  
  • great storytelling.
  •  
  • david waldman 2 years ago
    thanks so much for sharing that story. I was spellbound
  •  
  • Henry Selvey 2 years ago
    Rather stark and very poignant. Feels like the bottem fell out. Simple, direct, and full of disappointment - human disappointment!
    Henry
  •  
  • linkinmars 2 years ago
    BJ Will Always Full Of Hope Cos' We are
  •  
  • Nikio 2 years ago
    Amazing! The photos are made on BW film, right?
  •  
  • Charles Xu 2 years ago
    It's brilliant...
  •  
  • Chase Cranor 2 years ago
    thank you
  •  
  • Startledfish 2 years ago
    transfixed for 8 minutes 18 seconds. thank you.
  •  
  • Ed Davis 2 years ago
    Excellent photography! I was glued to the screen.
  •  
  • duncan sinclair 2 years ago
    basic truth from the eyes to the heart.well done!!! p.s. love the music. well done mate,all the best duncan..
  •  
  • lvchamian 2 years ago
    Great,my friend.thank you.
  •  
  • Poifox 2 years ago
    incredible work :)
  •  
  • MOTORDRIVE SCULLY 2 years ago
    Thank you for your story
  •  
  • Chris Allen 2 years ago
    Thanks for sharing this with us...
  •  
  • Smith M. 2 years ago
    Beautiful.
  •  
  • Denis Falardeau 2 years ago
    very nice pictures and beautiful music!
  •  
  • Ricardo Silva 2 years ago
    An intimate portrait on loneliness and disappointment...
    Sad but beautiful storytelling.
    My sincere thanks for sharing this look on your days and the ways of China.

    Best regards from Portugal,
    Ricardo Silva
    DigitalSlavery.net
  •  
  • Florent 2 years ago
    Beautiful images. Amazing texture that reveals the dark atmosphere. Maybe the most impressing work I watched on Vimeo.
  •  
  • Denis The7notes 2 years ago
    fantastic photography!
    thank u for the mood
  •  
  • Dan Lowe 2 years ago
    I definitely enjoyed it how it was, but wonder if it could have done without the subtitles. I think the photography and music speak for themselves, even at the risk of leaving a misinterpretation of what actually happened.

    Or maybe you could have just said what needed to be said at the beginning, then left out subtitles until the second part, and introduced that as well.

    Again, the pictures speak for themselves, and I do like this. It just might have been moving on another level otherwise.
  •  
  • Juan Pinnel 2 years ago
    Beatiful approach for telling a story.
    Chris Marker style.
    congratulations!
  • andrea keating 2 years ago
    jaj...que loco encontrarte acá !!
  •  
  • Jay Wang 2 years ago
    Another wasteful video made by another yuppie. I totally agree with Dan Lowe, your subtitles ruined the whole thing for me. Your interpretation of China is the typical western interpretation. You only observe with your rational half. It's not your fault, because you are not Chinese and therefore you will never understand the Chinese soul. I'll leave you with a quote from Confucius because you like to quote him... "Everything has its beauty but not everyone sees it."
  •  
  • Ray Baker 2 years ago
    Though I still found your visuals and sound beautiful, I was left wanting for a reflection of a deep beauty that is also China, in this Mr. Wang may have a point,....
  •  
  • Sriram 2 years ago
    I loved the ending...
  •  
  • JM CUELLAR 2 years ago
    wow! beautiful...ok! they have a point, but still beauty as a requiem (...)...you have something to say in a very personal style, and it´s your work...(wasteful????...I don`t think so).
  •  
  • Matthew W. Cole 2 years ago
    great story, felt a commonality that drew me in.
  •  
  • Kai Xu 2 years ago
    really moving.
  •  
  • Chris Chevalresk 2 years ago
    You made sadness so beautifull, good job
  •  
  • Virginie Terrasse 2 years ago
    very beautiful
  •  
  • Norteño 2 years ago
    Absolutely Stunning.
  •  
  • Julio 2 years ago
    Bravo!
  •  
  • paulo pinto plus 2 years ago
    It seduced me... lovely contrast. Wow, thanks for this
  •  
  • &Y 2 years ago
    Masterful. The feel is so calm and typography fitting. I had a hard time reading some of the titles in the latter half while first watching, perhaps because the music and images pull time to a near stand-still and my mind fell into pace, not wanting to adjust to read so quickly, so you might consider lengthening them slightly if you're not done with this piece for good. Excellent work, either way.
  •  
  • &Y 2 years ago
    Also did you develop any (black and white) film yourself beforehand, or make your chosen shots all have this appearance from within your video editing software. The contrast works very well, and is clearly adjusted in your video editor at least, but I am curious about a few of the 'spotlight' exposures in particular. Again, excellent work, and way to nail a narrative!
  •  
  • Humberto Méndez 2 years ago
    yo también he visto esto, y también estoy agradecido a quién lo haya realizado. Muy bueno.
  •  
  • Buchie Badger 2 years ago
    My brain exploded from the result of this artsy fartsy piece of emotional crap. This film has caused me to stab my cerebrum with a post-it until I die, or amnesia allows me to forget ever witnessing this.

    Besides that, great film. It has moved me and many mountains such as Mount Everest which is 29,028 ft located in Nepal-Tibet first climbed in 1953, Mount Kilimanjaro which is 19,340 ft located in Tanzania, and Mount McKinley which is 20,320 ft located in the US.

    Mount Everest was first climbed by Sir Edmund Hillary, NZ and Tenzing Norgay on May 29,1953. Climbing this mountain however did not further scientific progress and nothing was discovered from it. Yet their names were instantly remembered because of the spirit that was shown to climb this goliath.
  •  
  • Ellison Ramirez 2 years ago
    Long live film!
  •  
  • baldakino 2 years ago
    nice- makes me go search for / start a Chris Marker ++ channel!
  •  
  • happygooberhead 2 years ago
    WOW! What a great pile of POOP! Fantastic maloncholy propaganda! its never a surprise a white dude never exoticized native americans or the beautiful life style aboriginal "Indigenous Australians" MMMM why is that? Oh and the only joy is jerk off on a cheap porn? what was the cat houses in denmark not good enough for you? Another euro-trash sextourist looking for a hooker with a heart of gold? yes do you even care about the chinese in the country to learn the language?
  •  
  • andrea keating 2 years ago
    powerful !!!
  •  
  • joshua wilkins 2 years ago
    I have to say I was glued and mesmerized!I thought it was quite the adventure...
  •  
  • Garth Zeng 2 years ago
    nice images and music. but your interpretation was too simple and personal. don't judge.
  •  
  • Ralph Lindsen 2 years ago
    Wow, this is great. You've turned a slideshow (that's basically what it is) in to a visually compelling and personal story. Very good. I love your photography style, i love the imperfectness, the grain, the lighting and it perfectly illustrates the mood of the story.

    China is a strange place. 2 years ago i was capturing tapes of a trip to china of some businessmen for some presentation. The company i worked for made a short vid about it, boring, nothing interesting. But de camera man made some shots what he wanted to film in his own time. I thought it was bizarre. Old neighborhoods shredded demolished to clear the way for the huge invading buildings. The contrast was so strong and just next to each other.
  •  
  • Aharon Rothschild 2 years ago
    hey, thanks for the experience. and best wishes to S, wherever she is.
  •  
  • Mike Kobal plus 1 year ago
    incredible.
  •  
  • Rick Macomber plus 1 year ago
    another day... another adventure to conquer. Stark visual images and unique way to weave a tale.
  •  
  • Redefine Magazine 1 year ago
    nice photos and all, but a big wtf on the story. the pictures of countryside 'bumpkins' and poverty and derelict buildings you'd find in any country in the world somehow reflect an overall "bad" china and a china lacking GRACE?? because they didn't match up with your idealization of what china actually was?? i'm sorry, but the china in the photos is/was/has been a significant part of china for as long as anyone can remember. to go in thinking so significantly otherwise is just misinformed.
  • mmmm, ahah. well it was VERY long time ago and i dont feel very interested in this way of exploring the world. but the story is a total romance, it's not at all what happened, i just wanted to explore precisely this impossibility to communicate coming from a western perspective. i think the story is total cliché of course, but its charm comes from it - your comment is interesting but i dont think you got the point of the 'teenage sublimation' needed at this point in my life - before going somewhere else in exploring the world with images. sorry mate.
  • Redefine Magazine 1 year ago
    cool, thanks for the response! :D
  •  
  • kellie lee 1 year ago
    china falling from grace
  •  
This conversation is missing your voice. Take five seconds to join Vimeo or log in.

Advertisement

Statistics

Date Plays Comments
Totals 10.2K 379 68
Feb 15th 0 0 0
Feb 14th 1 0 0
Feb 13th 4 0 0
Feb 12th 3 1 0
Feb 11th 2 0 0
Feb 10th 0 0 0
Feb 9th 5 0 0

Related lessons from Vimeo Video School

Check out these lessons to learn more about how you can make videos like this one!