THE TIME WE KILLED
2004, 16mm, 94 minutes
Writer, Director, DP, Editor, Sound: Jennifer Reeves
Co-Producer: Randy Sterns
Starring and Additional Writing: Lisa Jarnot
With: Valeska Peschke, Rainer Dragon, Susan Arthur, Jennifer Reeves
Music: Eyvind Kang, Zeena Parkins, Pitt Reeves, Marc Ribot, Elliott Sharp, Elliott Sharp w/Christian Marclay
THE TIME WE KILLED portrays the inner life of a writer unable to leave her Brooklyn apartment on the brink of the US invasion of Iraq. Robyn Taylor tries to kick her growing agoraphobia by re-imagining her past and contemplating world events of the present. As Robyn begins to overcome the amnesia that afflicted her as an adolescent, she fears coming down with “the amnesia of the American people”.
As Robyn escapes into reveries of another time, an intricate film montage brings to life the friends, animals and places she once loved. The talking cure of psychoanalysis is evoked as Robyn voices her personal history, fantasies and observations with a wry sense of humor. As Robyn recounts her jump from a bridge, which left her with amnesia at the age of seventeen she muses, “the bridge wasn’t high enough”. Recollections of her days in a mental institution seem to predetermine her present-day compulsion to lock her self indoors. And as Robyn becomes increasingly disconnected from the world, flashbacks of her childhood visit her for the first time. Finally, the horror of the US military “shock and awe” campaign brings to light the terrible cost of complacency, and shakes Robyn out of her self-made isolation.
Documentary material and fictional scenes are interwoven to create this personal story about phobia and coming to terms with the fragility of life in a time of war.
AWARDS
2005 IFP Independent Spirit Awards, Nominated for “Someone to Watch” Award
2004 Berlin International Film Festival, FIPRESCI International Critics Award, Forum section
Tribeca Film Festival, Best NY, NY Narrative Feature
OutFest Film Festival, Outstanding Artistic Achievement