Mirror of Happiness

Sam Samore
Mirror of Happiness
Year: 2022.
Duration: 75mn.
Format: DVD/Blu-Ray
 
Mirror of Happiness, 2022 is a fragmented fairy tale about love and the longing for connection, situated at a time of global recession. Two anti-heroes from Paris run away to Istanbul, and are momentarily embraced by the Turkish fashion scene. Hunted down by unseen assassins, these nature lovers seek a new kind of paradise by the polluted sea. Or perhaps their paranoid fears, and fantasies of nirvana, are fictions of their imagination, and actually they never leave their hotel room. In a parallel universe unbeknownst to the Istanbul duo an unnamed couple living in New York City undergo a kind of mirror narrative. These urban romantics experience alienation, yet console and love one another as they play pool, go to the bowling alley, take a ferry ride around the Statue of Liberty. At various moments, all four characters address the audience in soliloquies that analyze their own lives, and examine the psychology of their lovers. A trio of dancers weave intermittent allegorical commentary throughout the unfolding of these two tales. The movie also features a pair of Ghosts, who play off the film’s scenarios. Loosely adapted from Jean-Luc Godard’s “Pierrot Le Fou.”

The film Mirror of Happiness stays in the tradition of Sam Samore’s recent films which can be described as visual poems oscillating between reality and fiction, often told as a non-linear narrative, reminding the viewer of fragmented fairy tales. These fragments show people alone or in interaction with others and often resemble dream sequences, confronting us with our secret wishes, fears and emotions – which are sometimes buried deep in our subconscious. Samore’s films reveal his continued interest in a critical analysis of how we live together in society – especially under the norms of gender, the assigning of roles, the codes of behavior, as well as the structures of power relations.