ESSAY:
mathonmatham and the Blurred Line Between Sanity and Insanity
by Joaquin Longoria10/07/2022
mathonmatham (2022)
Mathonmatham by Aisosa Edokpayi, Beverly Forrest, and Riac Oseph, is the embodiment of sheer confusion and dread. The feeling of being lost and drowning in an abyss of your mind, where your idea of what’s real and what’s not slowly fading is horrifying. From frame to frame, this piece impeccably illustrates what happens when we stray too far from the familiar. What happens when our grip on reality slips and we are tossed into a foreign land of our own consciousness? This film is a nightmarishly beautiful expedition into the unknown.
“The feeling of being lost and drowning in an abyss of your mind, where your idea of what’s real and what’s not slowly fading is horrifying.”
mathonmatham uses a variety of visual and auditory techniques that not only lend to the ominous and haunting tone but also heighten it. Using meticulously coordinated shot composition and perfectly crafted sound mixing, you’re presented with an unsettlingly euphoric piece. The visuals and audio in question both blend to take you on a journey of slowly slipping sanity, all the while your brain tries to make sense of the unsettling, yet familiar senses you feel. The film uses its low framerate and quality to its advantage, creating a visual flair that can only be described as the frames rippling to the next, almost rubber banding together to create a smooth and confusing image.
mathonmatham (2022)
“When watching this I couldn’t help but feel as though my brain was spiraling
in on itself, twisting and turning
trying to make sense of the almost nonsensical imagery”
With bright flashes that reveal the surroundings throughout, you almost feel like you gain a sense of clarity, as if your brain can finally take a moment to breathe, but those moments never last. Just as quickly as you recognize what’s in front of you, you’re thrust back into the unexplored expanse of your mind. Simultaneously, your ears are flooded with audio that is not only perfectly synced together to show you those moments of clarity and those moments of dread, but it almost sets a pace for your mind to follow. It’s executed in a way that can only be described as genius.
When watching this I couldn’t help but feel as though my brain was spiraling in on itself, twisting and turning trying to make sense of the almost nonsensical imagery, but then again that’s the beauty of it all. Every single choice within this film feels so nuanced, as though the director is pinching and squeezing the synapses of your brain in a calculated manner, all to evoke that sense of consciousness dissolving away.
mathonmatham (2022)
mathonmatham successfully rips apart the standards of typical narrative storytelling and opts to take apart our primal instincts of fear and feed them back to us. With an alluring and dismal dive into the human consciousness, you are dragged deep into your mind, and thrown for a loop, all while making you wonder, what happens when that line between consciousness and unconsciousness is no longer there?
Directed by Riac Oseph, Aisosa Edokpayi, and Beverly Forrest
Cinematography by Beverly Forrest
Edited by Aisosa Edokpayi
Here’s the link to watch the full short film: mathonmatham
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