Members' Preview: Two Years at Sea. Dir: Ben Rivers, UK, 2011, 88 mins.
Members' Preview: Two Years at Sea. An extension of Ben Rivers' short film This Is My Land, Two Years At Sea is a long-form portrait of a man named Jake Williams, who lives a life of solitude in a dilapidated house in the middle of the Scottish Highlands. Following this unlikely real life subject through the seasons, Rivers uses old 16mm cameras and monochrome stock to accentuate the antiquity of the curios that adorn Jake's humble abode. This hermitic existence is something alien; Jake is entirely at one with his environs and has no desire to seek out human contact. In approaching his subject without prejudice or a clear narrative agenda, Rivers has created one of the most intimate studies of the human condition you are ever likely to see.