Along with his dog, a frustrated middle-aged son tries to manage his
misanthropic 80-year-old mother in SHE UNFOLDS BY DAY, as her wandering draws her to a nearby woods where the forms and rhythms of eco-systems shape their story. Director Rolf Belgum spent four years weaving visuals of tiny creatures from his backyard, animated motions of his dog, and characteristics of the lives of wolves with the unpredictable nature of his mother, into a completely unique film full of emotion, both dramatic and fun. The film will have its World Premiere at CineVegas.

Tell us a bit about your background and how this project came to be developed? 

As a society, we have developed a view of nature, which generally falls into three categories: the playground, untamed evil, and the source of wealth. In narrative film, the use of “natural elements” reflects this narrow appreciation, acting as shorthand filler until the scene really begins. This leaves the natural elements with a sense of detachment from our narrative. Nature films, on the other hand, have been entities unto themselves, generally devoid of human narrative with the exception of sensationalized debauchery. This separation doesn’t seem to exist as dramatically and destructively in other artistic endeavors and in fact, it is embraced. It is almost impossible to imagine a poem that doesn’t revel in the metaphoric connections between nature and human. The landscape painter renders the figure as an expression and continuation of the ground. Japanese gardens lose the distinction between where art ends and nature begins. Carrying this idea into filmmaking was an developed over the course of 5 years editing, reshooting, reediting. I discover the subject through process of filmmaking.

How do the movements and forms of plants and animals literally create who we are? Likewise, how do we shape the environments that we inhabit? We are expressed in and through our relation to our surroundings and environment. I believe film to be an untapped resource in understanding these symbiotic relationships. Do animals “act?” Is there a difference between the unconscious of a wolf and dog? What have we sacrificed in our process of domestication? How is it that an extremely slight or transitory gesture by a human or animal can deeply move us? What is the relationship between acting and gesturing? What is the metaphoric relationship of “wild and domestic” to: The still and moving image, the incident and story, the smile and the snarl, our need to control our public appearance, and the body’s irresistible desire to express? These questions drive my shooting and editing decisions and my narratives emerge from bodies living stories rather than telling one.

How did you feel about dealing with the subject of Alzheimer’s?

50 million American’s will be dealing with Alzheimer’s in the next decade or so and there has been a ton of amazing medical research on the subject. There have also been a number of films dealing with the family aspect of a parent slipping away. I wanted to try and approach the topic from a different vantage point. In SHE UNFOLDS BY DAY, Alzheimer’s is never mentioned by name. What we use to call old age and senility is now a disease. Which it is. But it is also an experience, which reshapes time and space. 

My mother plays a character that is basically able to do most things on her own, but she wanders. This is the grey area of old age. She wants to be in her own home and has “run away” 12 times from various nursing homes and assisted living facilities. Her frustrated son is trying to take care of her and live a life as well.

I wanted her increasing abandonment of domesticity to be felt through the natural elements, which surround us. I see this contrast between the domestic and the wild as a way to sense what she may be going through, a partial loss of her self-identity and a return to a larger unconscious way of living. I also wanted a new sense of time to be felt through a narrative, which is a loose repeating loop.

Was the film shaped in editing or shooting or in a screenplay?

Just after completing the first version of this film titled The Wild Condition, my mother (who stars in the film) almost died and her independence rapidly diminished. Alas, the role she played essentially came full circle, the fiction became documentary. The combination of my mother’s decline and seeing new potential for natural/narrative connections consumed my life for the next three years. During the reediting of this film I became Penelope in the Odyssey. She would unravel the tapestry she was weaving to prolong her decision to marry a suitor. I was unconsciously keeping my mother on her own and out of a nursing home by obsessively unraveling and reediting this film. The film was shaped completely in the editing process.

Director Rolf Belgum 

How do you feel our daily routines are intertwined with nature’s daily tasks?

Unexpected stories of intersecting natural and human elements seem to permeate my life. Recently, while exercising at the downtown YMCA, I noticed a heavy-set man slowly weaving his way through the machinery of the gym. He passed from behind a back machine revealing his guide, a stunning black-lab seeing-eye-dog. The dog walked up to a leg machine and stopped. The man felt his way around the apparatus. The dog sat watching the man straining his legs with an enormous amount of weight. A deep thud echoed through the gym. A large bird, blind to the window, had flown into it leaving a perfect imprint of his face, body, feathers, and wings. Upon the bird’s impact, the dog abruptly stood-up, and the man asked me, “what happened?” I share this question.

I believe in the inseparability of natural elements from our stories. I believe in the primacy of nature, the truth telling of animal, plant and human through gesture and movement. How do the movements and forms of plants and animals literally create who we are? Likewise, how do we shape the environments that we inhabit? We are expressed in and through our relation to our surroundings and environment. I believe film to be an untapped resource in understanding and exploring these symbiotic relationships. I love the Whitman quote “the mouse alone is miracle enough to knock a sex-trillion infidels on their back.” If this is true of the mouse it’s almost impossible to calculate the fox terrier.

How important was actor collaboration in the process? 

The people who agreed to work on this project were wonderful. They worked well collaborating and since they were non-actors and really didn’t have expectations about the “right way” the flow of events was never impeded. Chris who plays the son was willing to bring his personal illness (Cystic Fibrosis) into the film as an element of his character. Jacques took to him right away.

How talented is that dog?

Jacques is a mystery. Most people that meet him say they have never seen a dog like him before. Recently, during a thunderstorm I came home to find him is the bathtub with the warm water turned on running down his back.

He was also featured in a photo exhibit at The Proposition in New York several years ago. My philosophy in raising him is that he has more to teach me that I do him. Mainly regarding the spontaneity of life and being in the moment. Eating, sleeping, sunlight, running, little white teeth, the main elements of life. He sat in my lap for most of the four years I spent editing sometimes snarling or barking at the screen.

Since this is the first time you’ve watched the film with an audience, what is your biggest hope and your biggest fear? 

It’s tough to say. I hope people find the film genuine. I guess my hope is that people will leave the theater with a bit more curiosity about the small life forms that surround us in our everyday life. My biggest fear is usually revolves around technical issues. Which is most likely a mask for the fear that people will think the film is bogus.

Red or black? Even or odds? 

Red/Odd!

How do you feel about showing the film in the city of Las Vegas?

I am so happy to have been invited I can’t even tell you. In a really strange way this City is the perfect place to launch this film. Alan Watts described Las Vegas as the Human version of the spider’s web. That Vegas was a natural extension of us no matter how “unnatural” it may seem. I love the lights and the most importantly the movement of the city. The contrast of the Desert to the city is surreal.

Do you see a connection between gambling and filmmaking?

What a great question. I love to gamble but have never had enough money to really “get in trouble” gambling. The risks in filmmaking are different in nature. I find there to be no real gamble unless you are creating something, which you need to “make it big”. Then that’s a gamble similar to Vegas style gambling. But if you just really feel driven to investigate something visually through the medium of film there really isn’t a gamble because the “success” is in doing it and the discovery that ensues. The only risk, and its huge, is in not pursuing a interest through this incredible medium.