O Tapete Voador

I don't really like the place where the film was screening. Don’t know why the documentary like this which deserved to be watched with a bigger screen ended up in a small random room, let alone the doors that made noises all the time whenever someone went out and came in.

This documentary O Tapete Voador(The flying carpet)was made in 2005 by a Portuguese filmmaker João Mário Grilo. He’s been making films for nearly 30 years. The Flying carpet was basically about the process of how Persian carpets were made. It is divided into five parts that were belong to three four voyages. The first one seems like an introduction to look at carpets in a very aesthetic way, whereas the second and the third part were about the process. At the end, there was no interview at all but only the room of Sigmund Freud in London. What a poetic documentary for me.

Unlike some documentary projects that were jumped off from different topics very quickly and very fast-paced, this piece created a kind of special atmosphere and rhythm itself. It slowed down everything so that you can take your time to appreciate the beauty of Persian rugs.

What I like about this film was that he did a lot of close-up shots from different carpets and very cohesive. Through the process of how they dyeing and weaving which is a tradition that has been doing for thousands of years, you can’t stop admiring their wisdom and insistence in these people. Especially when they talk about how different colors are coordinated together rather than contrast, that seems like their philosophy of life. However, it seems like that the director always used tripod to make shots very stable, but for me that also caused a lack of real sense of what we saw.

For people who used to watch fast-paced documentary, this piece might make you yawn for awhile at the first couple of minute because you found out the director moved his camera super slowly. For example, the shots of several ladies weaving the rugs lasted almost 3-5 minutes. But as far as it goes and you get yourself absorbed in the mysterious pattern on the rug, you would be amazed how beautiful the shots are. And I’m glad that the director adapted this approach to TEACH us how to appreciate and respect the beauty of art from another culture.

Also, the director used some footages from archive or somewhere like that to represent the scenes hundreds of years ago where people in the countryside have already started to make carpets by their hands. Though I don’t really find it logical enough but it did generated a fairy-tale atmosphere.

Although it was an only one-hour piece that contains the exhibition of carpets, dyeing wool, weaving and abrashing, there are a lot of moments that you felt the time was frozen because of the low paced. I love the abrashing shots the most in this documentary, where the workers wiped off the water on the surface on carpets, the scenes were so astonishing and beautiful. And it kind of reminded me that I can’t do things in a rush but keep waiting for the moment.

But maybe it’s too slow so when it showed up the credits, the host got up right away and turned on the light. ‘The film is not over yet!!! , the director shouted. I kind of feel embarrassed for him. It must be a very humiliating experience for him. The scene after credits was about a woman who was weaving which looked like a NG clip. That woman complained about the director was late for his interview with her, and she had been waiting for days. Though this short NG clip kind of came up out of nowhere, it was like a comic relief after watching an hour breathtaking documentary.