Beyond the One

Romantic love can assume many forms and be expressed in a myriad of furtive and physical ways; its mysteries and powers are not easily elided. Love can lead to survival if one can survive it.

Anna Marziano's Beyond the One, set to a breath-like rhythm, is an essayistic exploration of love's various guises, considering different attempts at courtship, living together, and sustaining connections with people once they have died. Shot on Super 8 and 16mm, the film proceeds like an open-ended travelogue through geographic spaces and excerpts from music and literature, creating a space to consider possessive desire, longing, domestic violence, family, and the pain and consternation caused by social ideals of love or coupledom.

Expansive in its reach, displaying generosity, gentleness, and curiosity, the film avoids categorical statements as it hews to the very mysteries to which intimate relationships can be beholden. Beyond the One movingly traces gestures, encounters, and conversations that wander into the ambiguous terrain where vulnerability and determination meet, ultimately offering an expansive reflection on the human condition - our aloneness as much as our yearning to be with others.

ANDRÉA PICARD