Lynn Ramsey's BAFTA winning short film 'Swimmer' (2012), follows a young man swimming across an assortment of lakes and rivers in Britain to the soundtrack of varying nationalistic music. The boy ending the short film by sinking leaving people to deduce the entire short is the process of birth to death, the conversation the boy overhears life experiences and the people he passes different moments of him ageing--the entire narrative non-linear if this is truly the preferred reading from the director.
The entire short being filmed in black and white adds to the atmosphere of the main character we follow looking back, supporting the reading of this film showing his life cycle, the boy swimming through drastically juxtaposing environments signifying him transitioning through the different stages of life; birth/childhood, adolescence/early adulthood, mature adulthood, and late adulthood/death.
The film beginning with a point of view (POV) shot of someone swimming underwater represents being in the womb, the boy swimming through the canal, hearing distorted voices and entering a larger body of water is him being birthed. Sharp cuts between the boy and a child walking through the forest connotes his childhood, him being attacked by a group of children his struggle through puberty. The boy then swimming under a bridge cut between shots of a woman, a tramp and a train conveys his journey through early to mature adulthood, his journey then moving on foot through a carnival shows late adulthood looking back on fond memories of childhood.
The film ending on a wide shot of the boy floating in front of a sunset signifies him dying, an extreme close up of half his face shows a painful facial expression and offers a drastically different perspective--spectators invited to connect with the boy in his final moments before he dips under the water. The final shot of the water just continuing to ripple after the boy has 'died' representing life continuing, the overall message inferred that in the chaos of one persons life the world around it is barely impacted; ripples in the water being his only legacy.
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