SXSW 2020 - Echoes of the Invisible
SXSWThroughout every part of the world, remnants of mankind’s past are present. Steve Elkins’ latest documentary feature, Echoes of the Invisible, takes the stories of six lives that are dedicated to separate personal quests, and weaves them into a profound web that connects them back to the roots of humanity.
Each of these stories contains their own perspectives on the same underlying themes. This allows the different components of an entire film to be individually delivered within each segment. Paul Salopek’s decade-long journey which retraced the paths our ancestors took offers insightful verbal commentary about finding faint echoes of people from a millennia ago and discovering important people today in spots that you would often ignore. On the other hand, Losang Samten’s segment about his life as a monk and his practice of creating sand mandalas focuses on silence and visuals to create symbolism. B-roll of the creation of sand mandalas is spread across the whole film and each time it plays, it takes on a different meaning.
This film boasts some of the best cinematography in a documentary in some time. Shallow depth of field is used to draw the viewers attention to the different stories. Cross dissolves are also used to demonstrate the connections between the human body and the universe. All of the visuals are very fluid and meaningful.
Although a good thirty minutes could have been trimmed off the runtime, and the pacing in the middle could have been a bit more focused, Echoes of the Invisible is an absolutely gorgeous look at humanity, the environment, and the way they interact and weave in these stories. Humankind has left their imprint all over the Earth, some of those imprints are nothing but an echo now, some quieter than others, but if listened a bit harder, then you’ll realize that those echoes have a lot to say about the human race.
