New York directors Simon Davis and Jason Sondock (aka rubberband.), were commissioned by NOWNESS to create a series of films exploring the power of color to create mood, suggest narrative, and elicit emotion.
In this first instalment, a young woman tentatively descends into the laundry room of an empty home. We soon discover this is the residence of her beloved. Evocative of Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski’s 1994 film Three Colors: Red, part of his trilogy, Red, Blue, and White, rubberband.'s scenes feature everyday items painted in the titular color, pushing the audience to see them as a manifestation of the protagonist's psychological state. “It’s hard not to be inspired by Kieslowski when making a trilogy of films about color," they say. "While our films don’t have clear cut themes as monolithic as his, they are our attempt to translate color into emotion.”
Color, as Swiss linguist Ferdinand Saussure opines, is just a “system of signifiers,” with red generally associated with danger, passion, marriage, or luck. Rubberband. play with this ambiguity, as a crimson filter makes it unclear if the central character’s journey to the basement is motivated by fear, hope or lust. Red’s sequence eventually reaches a climax as the young woman lies prostrate on the floor, submerged by clothes that devour her whole—the camera now soaked in a sea of erotic scarlet.
“Color is inescapably personal yet we all recognize the power and effect that it has in our lives,” say the directors, known for their signature cinematic-pop style. “The process of making these three films became about translating the ephemeral influence of color into stories.” Through this trilogy rubberband. explore themes of lust, life and love; they take colors and give them feelings, thoughts and actions. “We wrote the films with the conceit that we wanted to push each into slightly magical-realist territory,” the directors explain.
Davis and Sondock met at Tisch School of the Arts while studying film. A few years after graduating their distinctive creative work garnered the attention of Calvin Klein, Under Armour, LCD Soundsystem and Topaz Jones, winning them accolades and awards at international film festivals. Drawing from their experience of directing music videos, commercials, and visually driven shorts, Color Theory represents a departure for rubberband. into the world of narrative fiction.
Speaking of the themes they focused on for each film, the duo say: "Red examines the small ends of obsession, especially in lust. Blue deals with why we devote our lives to certain tasks and to what end (and, to a certain extent, the direness of socio-economic stature and the environment). Yellow deals with the anxiety that comes from sharing your life with another person, no matter how different they are."