Seems like the path of coincidences: Films by Eduardo Williams
February 1, 2021
Often beginning mid-conversation, Eduardo Williams’s kinetic films carry the viewer
through liminal and peripheral paths—alleys, hallways, jungle trails, and grocery
store aisles—into the intimate lives of its protagonists. What propels the movement
of the ambulatory young men in Williams’s films is less central than the visceral
feeling of being along for the ride. The hyperlocal, yet often disorienting experience
of place, be it Sierra Leone and France in Que je tombe tout le temps? / That
I’m Falling? (2013), or Hanoi in Tôi quên r?i / I Forgot! (2014), is deepened
through the casual minutiae discussed by close friends, the texture of beloved
hangout spots, and parkour practiced on abandoned buildings. The immersive
manner of being with that Williams establishes in these early works lays the
groundwork for his acclaimed feature The Human Surge (2016). In his latest film
Parsi (2018), the propulsive words of Mariano Blatt’s poem “No es” match the
relentless momentum of the embodied camera, which meanders the streets of
Guinea-Bissau. -AN