Overview

Ran Slavin

 

Ran Slavin's work vacillates between reality and the imagination, wakefulness and sleep, and creates an affinity between the psyche and the urban sphere. The film's fragmented, frenetic and haunted urban topography may be likened to a map of the human soul. The emotional condition of this work's protagonist, which makes it impossible for him to escape into the realm of sleep, represents an existential state. Paradoxically, this state of continuous wakefulness resembles a dream, or rather a nightmare, in which it is impossible to tell the difference between truth and fiction. When he wakes up in a parking lot with a bullet wound in his shoulder, he cannot remember how he got there, where his pistol is, and whether he is the victim or the murderer. The few instances in which he manages to recall moments from the past involve images of southern Tel Aviv as seen from the ground. This industrial, life-filled area appears local and concrete, and the language during these moments shifts from English to Hebrew. These flashes of reality stand out in contrast to the images of Tel Aviv that appear throughout the rest of the film, where the urban landscape is transformed into an abstract, undefined representation of a metropolis that could be anywhere in the world.

Born in Jerusalem, 1967; lives and works in Tel Aviv

http://www.ranslavin.com/