Despite its seemingly limited vocation to remain strictly within the perimeter of a real event analysed with journalistic lucidity, a documentary is a genre that can be open to generous stylistic palettes and tonalities. For Sam Wallace Harris, genre isn’t confined to the rigid structure of an ‘informative’ format. On the contrary, his short documentary, ‘PRANA‘, exults in the pleasure of affectionately capturing the beginnings of a musical band, inviting us into its creative laboratory. Focusing on the “protagonist” responsible for the birth of PRANA, Rodrigo Espino, the director is aware that the tools provided by the structure of a documentary can serve equally well to promote this exciting initiative by talented musicians. However, his project is not merely a marketing tool; it also serves as a subtextual commentary on the necessity of periodically decentralizing mainstream hierarchies, which often stifle “peripheral” artistic acts. These artists risk having their future compromised by an oversaturated market that promotes only a select few names. Despite all this, the short documentary is far from adopting a confrontational tone about the bitter struggles behind the industry.
Thus, remaining permanently in the zone of a comradely discourse, fuelled by pure passion for musical creation, the documentary flows fluently, while the testimonies or sequences during the production process follow one another with the naturalness of a conversation between two old friends. This sense of naturalness is, however, the outcome of a skillful directorial vision that avoids the pitfalls of an exaggerated, artificial tone and resists imposing the director’s own subjectivity over the chosen “object of study”. Sam Wallace Harris strikes the perfect balance between an objective perspective on the band’s backgrounds and the process of music production and the uncontrived spontaneity of small, everyday moments. In doing so, he transcends the impression of an improvised or secondary project by ensuring the structural coherence of the whole, elevating it to the same level of quality as the music it is devoted to.
In other words, while spotlighting a band that deserves our support and to whom we wish a bright future on the international stage, ‘PRANA’ also reassures us of a directorial talent that has “contaminated” us with the joy of watching a well-executed short documentary.
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