Ships were lost during these dark voyages, and said to have had the bad luck to encounter a huge sea creature in the deep ocean. I thought it would make an exciting and terrifying short film to use this imagery as a metaphor for the dark side of the moon in this story.
Saying it in another way, one can look at it as though the sun is ‘coming in to land’, something you might do on the day you reach the new moon. You can also view it as a day for ‘closing up the doors of perception’. Both of those phrases bring to mind a closing down or shutting out of one’s vision, and a closing up of perception into one’s mind as the night darkens and goes deeper into the interior of a ship or a woman.
As you might expect, people don’t always respond well to you bringing up a new Moon or dark themes. It’s almost a taboo to even mention it because ‘it’s the ‘lighter’ side of the Moon’, right? But in order to really grasp the theme of this short film, you have to go beneath the surface and allow yourself to open up to things that are happening at the darkest levels. You can also see that going back to the night sky and looking at the phases of the Moon, gives you this sort of ‘ladder’ to work up to in order to get to this dark underworld.
Of course, there’s a whole book to be written about this. It all started when I was listening to the track ‘Astral Projection’ by Enya, which seemed to connect the themes of the film to an even deeper level. You could even describe the lyrics of that song as a metaphorical narrative of going out on a journey to the ‘dark side of the moon’, and I thought it was a perfect fit. You can listen to it below.
On a more metaphorical level, the sea does have a powerful hold on human beings. It’s one of the most elemental, primal things we interact with on a daily basis. And when we can ‘travel’ to other parts of the planet in a physical sense, and go out into space, this holds powerful and eternal symbolism. The first great mythographers like Hesiod and Homer already understood this well, with their myths of gods and monsters living in and under the seas. But there are still things like the many legends of the creatures that can inhabit the oceans. There are even actual whales and other sea creatures that have humanoid faces on their bodies!
So there you have it. For me, at least, this seemed to be a wonderful opportunity for what is basically a dark story to explore. I would encourage other viewers and people reading this to check it out. It really is an example of a short film that really sets a tone and is able to evoke many different reactions from the audience. At one point, I wanted to make this dark side of the moon story about a man who was going through some sort of break down, and having to see his demons, his ‘monsters’, and his other nightmares in the worst ways possible. But I think this would have just driven the audience away. When you look at the history of nightmares, they almost always tell you something about the dark side of your own mind, something that we have hidden away, and it’s trying to break through and make itself known. So it was a case of having to choose something where the dark side seemed more obvious, and also more universal.
As you can see in the image above, this is another very personal story in a way, and yet there’s a sort of a universal tone running through the main characters too. ‘This is a story of a man struggling to face his own dark side, but the world itself is really dark as well.’ So when you start to examine these things more in a cold scientific manner, it’s really easy to understand the roots of fear that can run throughout your life. So I really do hope that this film has some impact in that way.
Just as an example, I have written before about how the ‘black hole’ is something that I constantly return to, despite never having spent any time in space or anywhere near that. It’s something that I read a lot about. I tend to be fascinated by where ‘black holes’ could have come from and how they are possible on a cosmic scale. The same can be said about ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ as well. And the dark, starless blackness of space itself is something that has always been a subject of fascination for me. So you start to get into this dark realm as a writer. You see these forces and powerfully negative events that are almost impossible to describe to other people. But they seem to be so deeply ingrained in our psyche and they become something that people can’t really relate to.
One of my other concerns is the ‘humanity’ that all of this suggests. ‘Who am I to tell people this?’ I wonder to myself. ‘What will other people think about this?’ But of course I have to wonder if this is a matter of survival. Why should I hide this from people when it’s going to come back to haunt us one day? The story of this human species that came from the dark realm could be told. The same for a lot of animals in nature who live in dark, shadowy places. How about a story of the dark side of the moon and what might really be happening down there with the water, the ‘foul liquids’ or some such thing? And yet this is something that would probably scare a lot of people, and might not be allowed to be in the public sphere.
In a way, the entire story of this human species and the human mind is something that really has not been told yet in the sense of a naturalistic or scientific approach. And yet, as a writer, it’s certainly a challenge. It’s something that’s worth going into as an artist. This is one of the reasons that I have a fascination with astronomy. Astronomy is something that really does seem like a dark art. And you have these things, which are almost beyond human comprehension, that are out there, and are always calling us on. Some people are more fortunate to have these things in the way of telescopes and so on.
On the other hand, being a writer, I get to go into this in a very deep, psychological way. And it’s interesting to ponder things like this and how to convey these ideas. I was thinking of that particular story where this character can only escape from the dark side of the moon by falling in love with a woman. It’s something about the dark side of the moon that really does open up a lot of doors and windows, and it’s going to reveal a lot more to us. In a lot of ways, it seems like an escape to the dark side of the moon is a way to ‘escape’ from all of this as well, to try to move beyond it into some sort of brighter realm.
Ultimately, it seems to be about the dark, yet it’s also about the light. This is the nature of myth, as I have found, and storytelling. You have to look at it from a variety of angles, including the dark and the light. You really have to try to understand the meaning behind it, and to go back into the history of these things and other people’s fears and reactions. This is part of what I want to investigate as a writer in my own way.
As I said in the opening of this article, I know the real world might be a very different and more interesting place when viewed from a different angle. For example, if you look at the human mind, we are often afraid of the dark, and are actually programmed to be fearful of darkness. We can lose control of ourselves in the dark. Many people are actually afraid of thunderstorms and lightening, even though they have nothing to do with us. I know I am. The dark is a metaphor for our fears and we tend to use metaphors to relate to the dark side of the moon for a lot of people.
But on the other hand, the dark can be a symbol of the unknown and some sort of ‘higher power’, especially in a religious way. We seem to have some sort of a desire for a ‘brightening’ or a ‘rising’ of the light at dawn. We also want to be the first one to see the light and to go to the first and most beautiful thing in the morning. There’s a need in our psyche, at least psychologically, to ‘rise above’ all of this. This is where I get to go into that realm of the ‘black forest’, where it seems darker than the most desolate place in the universe. And the more one gets involved in that story, the more fascinating it becomes, like what is the real ‘realm of the dark’? What would ‘dark matter’ be?
The dark forces are still out there. It’s not just something that’s just dark. It’s like the sea in the human mind, and how we react to these things. This is a truly great time to be alive. But there are also some real, dark forces lurking out there. As always, I hope I’ve been able to paint a more complete picture with this little tale of the dark side of the moon.
To close out, I do want to say that this film is being released to the public as part of the film fest. I hope that it will be shown at
