The Losing Battle

The Losing Battle is part of an octet of film poems inspired by my late Aunt Alice’s poetry. In this poem she uses the metaphor of war for a lover’s quarrel. My intention with the film is to amplify the emotional tone of the words, through repetition and staccato editing of image and sound in an attempt to convey the physical discomfort of being in an argument without winners, only losers. The source material for the image is an outdoor performance of the Quebec Circus, a comment on the overly dramatic lyrics of the poem, with the final smoke-filled image referencing a battlefield.