Private Project

Unless the Eye Catch Fire

An eagle falls from the sky into the back of a man’s pickup truck. Within a week, the man, his dog, and the eagle all die. Their deaths are diffracted through the memories of the man’s sister, over the well in the basement of their family home, and between the pine-slatted walls of an eagle rehabilitation centre.

  • Brandon Poole
    Director
  • Julian Dime
    Producer
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Experimental, Short
  • Runtime:
    13 minutes 50 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    November 30, 2024
  • Production Budget:
    0 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Canada
  • Country of Filming:
    Canada
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Brandon Poole

Brandon Poole is an artist, filmmaker, and PhD student at McGill’s School of Architecture in Montreal. His research and practice explore the entwined histories and speculative futures of architecture, simulation, and the image, while his films document the folkloric and vernacular constructions of place. He studied journalism and philosophy before completing his Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) with distinction from the University of Victoria and his Master of Visual Studies from the University of Toronto. His work has been shown at Dazibao (Montreal), the Toronto Biennial, the University of Toronto’s Art Museum, Polygon Gallery (Vancouver), and Deluge Contemporary Art (Victoria). His films have been screened at EXIS Moving Image Forum (Seoul), Antimatter Festival (Victoria), non_syntax (Tokyo/Taipei), and Suspaustus Laikas (Vilnius), among others.

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Director Statement

“𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦,” the Man’s sister told us, “𝘋𝘰𝘨, 𝘔𝘢𝘯, 𝘌𝘢𝘨𝘭𝘦—𝘐 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘪𝘵 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘦. [𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘨] 𝘥𝘪𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘧𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘶𝘳𝘦, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 [𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘯] 𝘥𝘪𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘢 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘭𝘺, 𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘭𝘺 𝘣𝘳𝘰𝘬𝘦𝘯 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘵. 𝘐 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘪𝘦𝘤𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘧𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘳 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴𝘯’𝘵 𝘧𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘢𝘨𝘭𝘦 . . . 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘢𝘨𝘭𝘦 𝘪𝘴 . . . 𝘐 𝘥𝘰𝘯’𝘵 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶’𝘥 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘪𝘵 . . .”

The Man’s sister’s uncertainty toward the eagle’s role in the sequence of deaths intimately expressed the narrative tension which inspired our film. Although the deaths occurred one after the other—first the dog, then the man, then the eagle—they were not causally related. Indeed, what made the story interesting was just this fact. The literary theorist Roland Barthes speculates that this exact condition, of taking a consecutive relation between events for one of consequence, has been, throughout our human history as storytellers, nothing less than the “mainspring of narrative.” As filmmakers we were drawn to this tension—the possibility that our story echoed an 𝘶𝘳-story, could be lofted toward a kind of contemporary folklore.

Searching for other examples which position indeterminacy as a central thematic, we discovered the Canadian poet P.K. Page’s 1979 short cli-fi story 𝘜𝘯𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘌𝘺𝘦 𝘊𝘢𝘵𝘤𝘩 𝘍𝘪𝘳𝘦. In Page’s apocalyptic narrative, which opens with the image of a flock of startled birds (“gone in a rush—a sideways ascending Niagara”), a woman and her dog, faced with the end of the world, begin to see explosions of colours: “bright and dark spectrums,” “whole galaxies of them, blazing and glowing, flowing in rivulets, gushing in fountains—volatile, mercurial, and making lacklustre and off-key the colours of the rainbow.” Though never explained, this novel perceptual condition encourages the protagonist toward new meaning and connection at the precise moment of humanity’s demise. Balanced by fear and uncertainty in an ending world, the woman experiences the inexplicable colours with wonder and joy.