Way back in September Dots & Dashes featured Six, the debut short from the coffee-riddled mind of impassioned London-based director Ben Cousens. The Persistence Of Loss, his second short, tells the story of a forlorn inhabitant of a morose purgatory, caught between the dim reality of Goodge Street cafés and a craving for closure, seeking to draw a line beneath a seemingly mundane relationship that's entrapped the protagonist in life. Quite fortuitously caught within a January snowstorm, The Persistence Of Loss, whose title derives from a Nine Inch Nails off-cut drawn from acoustic LP Still, was produced in a mere matter of hours (or three days to be precise), with one camera and a budget of £90. Cousens cites "great friends" as the key to the pearled gates of critical acclaim hoped to be leveled at The Persistence Of Loss, with pipe cleaner-legged chum Edward Livingstone-Learmonth silently glaring his way captivatingly across bustling snapshots of central London and the damp, dingy bedsits that fill it. Morbid contrasts and dull, almost sepia-like scenes compose the short, with vivid colours alluding to the vivacity of life we oft ignore.
Streaming below and clocking in at around eight minutes, it's a fairly reasoned way of passing any moments of secluded solitude...
A story of lost love and the power of denial.
Starring:
Edward Livingstone-Learmonth
Rich Watkins
Gemma Rogers
Danya Hannah
