Aqua Profonda is the memory of a young boy as he stands by a pool; he remembers his initial fear of swimming and also feelings when crossing the country in an airplane.
I tend use to blogs and the mostly reliable Vimeo team to help highlight good short films to watch, and I would almost read any of the write-ups before watching the film and making some comment on it for myself. With Aqua Profonda this was sort of the case, but after my second viewing I went to the write up to read about the maker's feedback to the blog on what he was going for. The reason for this was that there was a lot of different times and memories in this very short film but yet it wasn't clear to me what was what and why it was this way.
Reading about the director's process whereby he was trying to distill his own memories down to very brief moments – his movement from one side of Australia to the other (moving from WA to Victoria, which explains the colors used for different places), his fear of water. All of these are very personal memories and there is the problem of the lack of context or any way to get it beyond heading outside of the film and direct to the source. In the interview snippets I read, Campbell wrote of wanting to create a sense of confusion and awe, and in a way he has, but probably to a degree more than is good for the film.
Visually the film is very nicely done, with colors used well to depict different times, with a thread of a frog running through them all which I liked since normally little things remind us of other things and send our minds off, which is how the film works. In this way I enjoyed it, but my first viewing left me out as I tried to understand what it was doing. It is a shame that you have to go outside to get the good of the film, but as a personal piece for Campbell it works very well, just be wary that you'll get more from it with a bit of knowledge heading in.