Jessica Barden, left, and Noomi Rapace co-star in the short film “Hearts of Stone.”
“It’s funny: I’m surrounded by people all the time, but only when I’m a statue (do) I feel like they really see me,” says Paula, the main character of “Hearts of Stone.” “Without this, I’m just another drop, lost in the rain.”
Paula is a lonely woman from Antwerp who works as a living statue. That is a type of street performance in which she makes herself look like a statue, standing still and receiving tips from those who appreciate her artistry, and want to take pictures with her.
This immaculately polished and thoroughly absorbing 30-minute film will be shown at The New Jersey Film Festival at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, Sept. 7 at 5 p.m., and will be available online throughout Sept. 7.
It was directed by Tom Van Avermaet (a 2012 Oscar nominee in the Live Action Short Film category for his “Death of a Shadow”) and co-stars Noomi Rapace (who is also one of its co-executive producers) as Paula, and Jessica Barden as Agatha, a statue who comes to life, awakened by Paula’s love.
This is a philosophical love story, basically, as the two characters — a human who sometimes feels like a statue, and a statue who is able to see and feel things (she loves rain, she tells Paula, but hates pigeons) — strive to connect, and understand each other. The trappings may be surreal, but this is also a story that is very easy to relate to.
Van Avermaet and Alison Kathleen Kelly, who co-wrote the script, also have a lot to say about modern culture. A school group is shown on a field trip to the park, with their teacher striving to express why the Agatha statue is so beautiful, but failing to draw their attention away from their cellphones. When she is not posing, Paula scans the Internet on her own cellphone, looking for pictures that people have taken of her.
“I live my life in photographs,” she says. “Strangers make me feel like I matter.”
The film’s 30 minutes are packed with striking images: Of a somber-faced Paula, wearing bronze makeup and bronze-toned clothes, looking like a relic from the Victorian Era; of Agatha, slowly creaking to life, shedding dust as she awkwardly stretches out her arms; of a roomful of living statues, dancing together at a party that is part of a Living Statues Festival, and eerily stopping and standing still, when the music stops.
There is amazing work, here, by hair and makeup designer Katrien Frenssen, costume designer Sofie Callaerts, production designer Philippe Bertin, and composer’s Marko Jukić, who adds a touch of classical elegance with his score.
In a sad twist, Agatha is in danger of being replaced, at the park, by a more modern, abstract piece of sculpture. Van Avermaet and Kelly seem to be saying that timeless, subtle beauty doesn’t stand a chance, in the present, when people are looking for something more hip and immediately striking. Yet the film’s ending suggests that even if people go through their lives distracted by trivial things, art can still find a way to break through, and inspire — “in the strangest of places, if you look at it right,” as Jerry Garcia once sang.
“Hearts of Stone” will be shown at Voorhees Hall at Rutger University in New Brunswick, Sept. 7 at 5 p.m. It will also be available online, all day Sept. 7. For information, and more about other New Jersey Film Festival offerings, visit njfilmfest.com.
Here is the film’s trailer:
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