Syndafloden (The Deluge, 2021) [Trailer]

#artfilm #arthousecinema #deluge #flood #florence #leonardodavinci #notredame #paris #prophecy #riddles

Syndafloden (The Deluge, 2021) is the first full-length feature film by Jenni and Lauri Luhta. The work is visual-cinematic, realized through digital collage technique. The film's script is based on the prophecies and riddles in the work diaries of Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519). The work on the film began in the spring of 2019, when 500 years had passed since Leonardo's death and the Notre Dame of Paris caught fire.

The journey starts with Leonardo wandering among nature's sublime wonders and rumblings, finally coming upon a cave. A secret is found therein: it is Death (played by Jenni Luhta), reciting Leonardo's prophecies in Swedish for the remainder of the film. Through Leonardo's words and visions, we look into the state of the contemporary world, our present age that was born from the shock of the 20th century and the World Wars. As our story is narrated by Leonardo through Death's lips, our emotional guide for the duration of the trip is Olavi Paavolainen (1903–1964), a Finnish critic and essayist to whom this film is dedicated. As Paavolainen represents the 20th century tragic European (melancholic Parisian influence on modernity, fears of decline of the West, witnessing WWII, genocide and atomic bombings), the present is portrayed by a fish-eyed Follower (played by Lauri Luhta) of Death. The passive Follower accepts the strange death of Europe, as well as his own death, but in his total, futile emptiness is ready to be reborn, realizing that the great turning in the West away from what is best began already before Leonardo’s time, the so-called Renaissance...

© 2021 Jenni & Lauri Luhta