A girl floats down a river in a dinghy. The child observes what happens on the surface of the water, then on the bank: nothing less than the entire life of a magnificent insect, which for her becomes the epitome of all creation. We witness its mating rituals and can imagine how the new creature develops and changes until it finally hatches. A myriad of them emerge one sunlit day, but not all of them will survive their first hours - when their time is so short anyway compared to the average length of time a human being is allowed in this world.
Vita brevis (2014) is a miracle of a film and an extraordinary piece of craftsmanship: Thierry Knauff, the genius of a cinema that boldly rejects all classifications, had to shoot almost every frame at a different speed in order to create the impression of an even flow of existence in the montage. Which is nothing other than a reflection of what we are allowed to experience here: how a barely nameable number of experiences and modes of perception coexist in every moment.
