4 min; English; dir. Lesley Keen
From Lesley Keen’s YouTube page: “Invocation originated as a sequence within the documentary Orpheus Through the Ages made by Pelicula Films to accompany Orpheus and Eurydice [her animated film from 1984]. It was designed to illustrate the Ancient Greek myth of the Creation of the world. It was shot on 16mm and subsequently enlarged onto 35mm for festival screenings. The techniques employed were a test run for those which ultimately were used within Ra; the Path of the Sun God [her feature film from 1990].” This film, like Orpheus and Eurydice, was made as commissions for UK’s Channel 4 in the 1980s.
What she does not mention here, but quickly becomes evident from the narration of the film (click for transcript), is that this is a variation on the Orphic myth of creation from ancient Greece, which differs significantly from the more canonical version of creation in Hesiod’s Theogony, which is known best to us moderns.
The mystery cult of Orphism was an alternative to traditional religion centered on the teachings of Orpheus, who acquired divine knowledge when he went to the underworld. The cult revered the god Dionysus (sometimes known as Zagreus), who, in this belief system, was born of the union of Persephone and Zeus, and who was killed and consumed as a baby by the Titans. Zeus blasted the Titans with a thunderbolt and humans were formed from the resulting soot, which contained a bodily element from the remains of the Titans and a divine element from those of Dionysus. Initiation into the cult allowed humans to transcend this evil, bodily element and break the grievous cycle of reincarnation to which we are subject.
In Orphic belief, there were other, less familiar entities who facilitated the emergence of creation long before Zeus and the Titans came into being. These include Time, Necessity, and Aether, who created the cosmic egg, out of which Phanes (sometimes Eros), a bisexual deity, was born. Phanes’s union with Night gave rise to Heaven and Earth (aka Ouranos and Gaia) who then created the Titans and Zeus. Zeus then consumed Phanes and recreated the world. It was then that the birth of Dionysus outlined above took place.
Impressively, all of this is represented in dynamic terms in Keen’s mesmerizing experimental film, and in less than four minutes. Using simple line drawings on a black background, colors and symbols in motion, and an alien-inspired synth soundscape, she brings to life one of the most mysterious myths of the ancient world.
Animated Antiquity 