★
Directed by: Sam Seen
Written by: Sam Seen
Starring: Martin Lee
If there is a Great Art somewhere in Sam Seen’s 1 minute and 26 seconds short film, then it has totally escaped my grasp. Titled The End Has No End, this 240p resolution video that I watched on YouTube shows a man (Martin Lee) climbing the stairs two times in a row (there is a cut after the first climb, indicating the passage of time, but the two shots are edited in a way that makes them consecutive). The set features three stairs connected in parallel to each other against the backdrop of a big white circle (is it the moon? Can’t say for sure. The video quality is not so good).
In an attempt to make sense of it, I went through the video 6-7 times. What did I find? Nothing. Nada. Nowt. What is it about? Or is it about anything at all? I googled the title and found lyrics to a song of the same name by A. G. Cook. Over the next few minutes, I went through the lyrics and tried connecting them to the short film. What did I find? Nothing. Nada. Nowt. Well, to be honest, it was a giant leap anyway. Still, I was not ready to give up just yet.
Maybe The End Has No End was inspired by a famous painting? It could be possible because the Facebook page of Sam Seen is filled with some pretty cool images. There is one captioned “Vocal Poetry Masked Cover” in which a couple is kissing with their masks on while their heads are inserted in two different circles. So it might be possible then that The End Has No End could have been derived from a greater, obscure art.
To find the “inspiration,” I took the screenshot of the film and ran it in Google Images. The results consisted of a set of black and white architectural images. All of them were displayed under the term “language.” What language is The End Has No End speaking? Is it about our mundane life that is passing by every second while we are busy with our actions? Or does it intend to convey us to engage in exciting activities and not waste our precious time like the man in the short for whom the only change that takes place is that in his second climb, he gets to go on the upper staircase? Does the presence of the big white circle (or the moon?) indicate something surreal? Or does #timeTraveller in the description of the video means that the man is a time traveler who may have possibly manipulated time to occupy the position in the upper level of whatever this place is? I don’t know. Only Sam Seen can give an answer. If there is one.
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