Children Of Nature: Does Land Have A Memory Of Its Own?

Does land have a memory of its own? The film Children of Nature suggests that memory is strongly connected to the land on which the memory was created. Therefore, a walk on the beach combined with the sounds of waves crashing on the shore, and the feeling of wind blowing through your hair may illicit similar or random experiences that occurred years before. In this sense, experiences bleed into the land, whereby creating a pool of memories connected to a seemingly arbitrary symbol of its creation. The land, like a written history, contains the memory of the dead. Each memory forms a layer marking its existence on the land, whereby we can relive fragments of our past. The memory sequence in Children of Nature uses jump cuts and arbitrary scenes …show more content…
Stella wears a red sweater and the film jump cuts to a young women wearing a red sweater as well. This visually matches the two women and suggests that they are the same person. The film is primarily dark with a muted color pallete, therefore the red sweater stands out and emphasizes that Stella may not belong in this world, but instead she belongs in the past world depicted in her memories. Many of the memories in the film begin next to red firelight glowing on the faces of Stella or Thorgier. For example, at the beginning of the film Thorgeir burns old photographs of most likely his family or childhood. These photographs contain happy but painful memories that Thorgier found easier to destroy. Likewise, Stella began to remember in the warm glow of firelight. The warmth extended by the fire represents comfort and familiarity because the memories depict the past which is comforting and familiar to Stella. However, the memories are also painful because of the knowledge that they can never be relived again, but only remembered. The color red depicted in the film emphasizes the comfort and pain that memories bring to Stella, as she remembers a familiar past while living in an unfamiliar