Spicebush

In Spicebush, entomology and palaeontology give life to a story of the origins. The title refers to the Spicebush Swallowtail butterfly, the symbol of the State of Mississippi which is described as the cradle of the origins of life. The fossils thematize the simultaneous presence of past and present, whereas the butterfly embodies the perennial cycle of end and renewal. In the same fashion, different modes of storytelling are offered hanging between documentary, found footage, fiction, and experimentation. All these formal and narrative levels are intertwined on the background of elements such as the flowing of time, landscape, the problems of education, and some of Everson’s most characteristic themes like the landing of a job and the risk or fear of losing it. Throughout the film, the presence of a little girl throughout the story is reminiscent of a Greek chorus, or the awareness of the cycle of life. A promise of renewal and re-birth. Blind Huber is a visual adaptation of a poem by Nick Flynn inspired from the life of the beekeeper François Huber, whereas Nectar, made in collaboration with William Wylie, is a reflection on the seductions of light conducted through the shapes of the Pandorus Sphynx Moth, a common insect in central Virginia. These three films expose some of the daring and carefully crafted images of Everson’s work. His passion for entomology becomes a subtext that expresses a mythological approach to the filmmaking process. Furthermore, these are some of the films where Everson most clearly challenges the traditional boundaries between the forms of documentary, experimental, and conventional filmmaking. The insect leitmotif represents the permanent mutations and transformations of the life-process as imaged in a perennial cycle of death and renewal.

Giona A. Nazzaro