First of 10 Cinemagraphs from Mieke Marple’s film “Cold and silent, like a heart” Visual effects and art direction by Francisco García Nava

"Cold and silent, like a heart" is a feminist reinterpretation of Antonín Dvořák's symphonic poem: "The Water Goblin" (1896), based on a poem of the same name by Czech folklorist Karel Jaromír Erben from 1853. The poem is about a goblin who abducts a young maiden and forces her to bare his child. It ends with the girl reconnecting with her mother and refusing to return to her unhappy life with the goblin, which the goblin then punishes by murdering their child. In Marple's reimagining, told through animated images and select stanzas from Erben's poem (below), the goblin is removed from the narrative. The focus becomes the girl's mental state and what now reads as her decision to end the life of her own child—a la a kind of abortion. The story is still a heavy one, but it at least depicts the young girl with her unwanted pregnancy as a person of agency rather than an agent-less victim.

Gloomy are those watery realms desolate they are Cold and silent, like a heart hopeless with despair Rockabye, my little son born to one unwilling Do not blame a faded rose crushed and withered here In their blood, two objects lying Baby's head - without a body: Tiny body - with no head

MP4 | 2160x2160 | 0:09