Double Tide

Work: The twilight is called magic hour in cinema practice – for its softer, yet clear luminosity. On very few days in the cycle of nature, low tide happens twice – during the twilight hours at dawn and dusk. In coastal Maine in North America, a female clam digger works on the mudflat, bending her spine again and again through the magic hour light. Sharon Lockhart structures the film into two static shots. In the first shot, the woman’s image, blurred by the morning fog, is slowly illuminated as the progressing daylight reveals a melancholic landscape. In the second shot, the setting sun glistens on the mudflat and on the distant tree lines, as the clam digger traverses back along her line of work. The cycle of nature and the rhythm of labor enter into dialogue with each other as the sound of occasional sea birds and the plop of the extracted clams from the muddy soil is interspersed with the bodily sound of squelching boots and shallow breathing. In this dialogue-free film of 99 minutes, the precarious labor and the surreal landscape – simultaneously cruel and beautiful, spontaneous but also choreographed, abstract and yet tactile, and quiet but strangely deafening – come together to form a symphony. (Madhusree Dutta)