The Dust Factory - The dust factory
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The Dust Factory - The dust factory |
| Original title | The Dust Factory |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 2004 |
| length | 99 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 6 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Eric Small |
| script | Eric Small |
| production | Tani Cohen |
| music | Luis Bacalov |
| camera | Stephen M. Katz |
| cut | Glenn Farr |
| occupation | |
| |
The Dust Factory is a film by director Eric Small, and shows in a metaphorical way the threshold between life and death.
action
Ryan Flynn has not spoken a word since a tragic car accident in which he watched his father die. One day when he and his friend Rocky were driving his rollerblades over a rotten railway bridge, a piece broke away from under his feet and he fell into the water.
When he appears again, Rocky has disappeared and when he arrives at home, Ryan meets his grandfather Randolph, who was originally dying and suffering from Alzheimer's disease, but who looks very much alive. For the first time since the accident, Ryan also finds his way back to words. Only gradually does the fact clear that Ryan is trapped in a parallel world as a result of the fall , and that each person sees the world as it was at the time they entered it. Ryan meets a girl named Melanie, for whom it is always winter and she is therefore dressed in a thick coat. She leads Ryan to the "dust factory", which is run by the ring master and his 2 mimes Hope and Sorrow.
In the dust factory, everyone “stuck” has the opportunity to “jump”, that is, to be caught by the trapeze catcher by performing a stunt on the trapeze. Those who are caught are allowed to “move on” (interestingly, these people die in the real world), while those who fall turn to dust when they touch the circus floor and thereby return alive to their world. Melanie clearly speaks out against jumping and so it is not an issue for Ryan for a long time.
When Ryan tells Grandfather Randolph that Grandmother has died, the latter decides to hold a funeral service. At the funeral service, the ringmaster attacks Ryan, but is driven away by Grandfather Randolph.
On a trip to Ryan and Melanie with Grandfather Randolph in his car, Grandfather Randolph tries to remind Ryan that his family needs him, but Melanie gets angry because she has found in Ryan the friend she has always been to in this world waited, so she and Ryan are promoted to the dust factory with a whirl of leaves. There she angrily steps into the dust heap, whereupon the ground breaks away from under the feet of the children and they are drawn into the world of the ringmaster by black, slimy tentacles. There those who stepped on the dust pile have to show confidence in order to get out. Ryan, who did not, is promoted back out.
After talking to his grandfather, he decides that he had dawdled far too long and that the time had come for him to jump. He arrives at the dust factory through a white cloud of fog, but Ryan, who wants to follow him, ends up in the closet of his room. He walks to the dust factory, but is prevented by a train from seeing how his grandfather is doing. When he arrives at the dust factory, it is empty and after seeing a pile of dust in the ring, he concludes that his grandfather didn't make it. This time it is he who crushes the heap of dust and again he is drawn into the world of the ringmaster.
Ryan challenges him, and after he has won he wants to go back up to the parallel world with Melanie, who is still in captivity of the ringmaster. However, Mel has too little confidence in herself to go to Ryan, because she knows that she should have jumped long ago and so she is afraid of every decision. However, Ryan meets her halfway and so they manage to return together.
When he arrives at Ryan's home, a crowd awaits him celebrating his grandfather's successful jump. For Ryan it is now time to take the plunge and so he goes to the dust factory, where he says goodbye to Melanie. It looks like it can make the jump, but it slips and atomizes on the ground.
Melanie, who has now lost her only friend in this world, stops believing in her and so she suddenly falls into the water when she skates again on the lake that is always frozen for her.
Ryan emerges from the lake he fell into at the beginning of the story, and his friend Rocky rushes to his aid. He broke his leg when he fell off the bridge and after the hospital stay he and his mother are standing on their veranda. However, she hides from Ryan that his grandfather has died. A car pulls up and the neighbors' daughter gets out of it, it turns out that it is Melanie, who had been fighting for her life in the hospital because of an aneurysm for some time .
With crutches Ryan and Rocky meet Melanie on the rotten bridge and they get to know each other again. Together they walk along the bridge and although the two cannot remember each other, their friendship already seems to blossom anew.
interpretation
In The Dust Factory, all three protagonists are on the verge of death. This threshold is symbolized by the world of the Dust Factory. So the Dust Factory represents a person's ability to choose to fight for their own life (paradoxically, the people who fail the jump are those who do not die). This is made clear by several examples:
- Grandfather Randolph only decides to take the plunge after learning of his wife's death. Nothing holds him in the world of the living anymore. He is more than ripe for the transition to death, which is also proven by the trapeze catcher's statement ( "He would have held me even if I had only had stumps instead of arms" ).
- Ryan is still very unsettled by the death of his father during his jump, which is symbolized by the very close result of this jump. Ultimately, he decides to live and at the same time gets over his father's death, which makes him speak again in the real world (although he did speak in the Dust Factory, he cannot remember it).
- Melanie realizes through Ryan that the real world has something in store for her that she has always been waiting for. Through the friendship with Ryan she manages to jump over her own shadow.
Reviews
“A serious, but not brooding youth film, which addresses the fears of growing up and underlines that only lived life - even with its dark sides - makes sense. Photographed sensitively, played convincingly. "
Web links
- The Dust Factory in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Dust Factory. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .