I Know What I Saw
From the Archives
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14-Mar-2019
Charting a cross country journey through rodeos, deserts, and motels, “I Know What I Saw,” is a poetic travelogue of American landscapes and small encounters. Directed by Gillian Waldo, who narrates a series of postcards addressed to someone named “N” — detailing low-key run-ins with cops and park rangers, eating food from gas stations and casinos, and watching cowboys tie down calves — the film is presented largely as a 16mm slide show. The images are gorgeous and the tone meditative. It’s also quite distinct in its whispered cynicism. Waldo speaks of a land of “junkies drift(ing) through parking lots all night slamming doors,” and unexploded ordnance in the Badlands (“this land is disposable, and so are you”). All the while, she reckons with her solitude and her relationship with N waiting for her (or not) at home, and ultimately wonders where the trip has actually led her, if anywhere. And yet, the splendor of the landscapes remain. -KA. Directed, shot, and edited by Gillian Waldo. Produced by Julia Gunnison.
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