Boiler
9m · USA
Directed by Nicholas Motyka
Genres: drama, experimental
A young couple returns home for the holidays and gets pinned to a family dinner table while the tension boils into outright rage, all of it built around a Bob Holman poem.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Poetry adaptations usually translate the work into something safer. Motyka does the opposite — keeps the spark, throws away the explanation.
Nicholas Motyka adapts a Bob Holman poem by refusing to decode it — the language becomes scaffolding for visual fury at a family dinner. Mekas-adjacent, not for everyone, undeniably its own thing.
Holiday dinner pinned to a Bob Holman poem as scaffolding for visual fury — Motyka adapting a poem without trying to decode it is the right move, and using language as visual material is a real commitment.
Reviews
Motyka's film has no designs on clarifying the precise meaning of the poem, but mirrors the spark of its language with uninhibited visuals.
Festivals
- Visible Poetry Project