Black Bile
Seven black books
Black Bile
A mentally ill adolescent lives several nightmares.
2018
24 minutes
1.85 : 1
Color and Black & White
James Kolakowski as ARCHY
Written by James Kolakowski
Directed by James Kolakowski
Produced by James Kolakowski
Edited by James Kolakowski
Sound Design by James Kolakowski
Soundtrack by James Kolakowski
Stop Motion Animation by James Kolakowski
Credits by James Kolakowski
Image Gallery
I. Sleep Drift
II. Calling Dr. [redacted]
III. Fragments of a Hidden Id
IV. Eat Something
V. The Divine Sit-Com
VI.
VII. Deep Sleep Diver
I. Sleep Drift II. Calling Dr. [redacted] III. Fragments of a Hidden Id IV. Eat Something V. The Divine Sit-Com VI. VII. Deep Sleep Diver
The film is bookended by two 2D stop-motion animated sequences depicting an unnamed character in a cramped bedroom.
In the first sequence, he finds himself surrounded by a spiraling black substance and seeks escape in deep sleep.
The second sequence ends with the cessation of the dark spiral after it consumes the sleeper and leaves the bedroom decrepit and empty.
The matter-of-fact video experiments of Peter Campus were among Black Bile’s few cinematic influences. A section of his 1973 Three Transitions depicts the filmmaker gently erasing his face from his head, revealing his own face again underneath.
Three Transitions, Peter Campus, 1973
The effect was emulated by exploiting a fault in iMovie’s green screen tool, a technique of which greater use was made in Northern Lakeside Hotel, created a few months after Black Bile.
Northern Lakeside Hotel, James Kolakowski, 2018
The dish in the fourth canto was primarily made up of Spam and sardines, with dried seaweed and wilted kale for garnish.
It was not eaten.
The finale was shot in an abandoned building filled with asbestos, formerly a local supermarket. It had remained gutted and vacant for over a decade by the time filming had commenced, and has since been made into a preschool.
