June Butler travels to the not too distant dystopian future in the west of Ireland, in Laura Sheeran and Little John Nee's filmic/stage collaboration Drone Bone Jetty.
Puck Tyrell (Little John Nee) is waiting for a boat. Whittling away the time, he daydreams about his life at that moment and launches into an impassioned monologue on the existence of being, tripping over moods and events while explaining his thought processes through the medium of descriptive hyperbole. Tyrell maintains he is not a hologram but a beating heart, and goes on to express his feelings through the agent of shimmering half-seen visions cocooned within an aural vessel of minor keys and dissonant beauty.
Opening scenes of Drone Bone Jetty show Tyrell dressed as a warrior – fierce, unbowed, and unrelenting. He imagines himself a troubadour and lays allegiance to a body titled The Academy of Holodramatic Art. Over the course of the film, Tyrell is lauded as a ‘genius’ by this same body. He is repeatedly invited to star, perform, and share his experiences, which often take the form of a mishmash of misunderstood meaning, schemas that blend into nothing, and, at times, the nonsensical nuances that dreams often take. In fact, the entire film is dreamlike and ethereal – moments are filled with pathos, imbued with joyous import and portend, yet there are others that show a winding, twisting tale of babble and mayhem. Tyrell relates stories and offers a gamut of emotions in close-ups, at various times depicting grief, joy, anticipation, acceptance of his fate, and humble acknowledgement of audience adulation. He raises a quizzical eyebrow when a new situation manifests itself and eagerly awaits revelations with childlike anticipation. The entire film is a passage to affirmation, whether negative or positive.
At first glance, Drone Bone Jetty looks like an ode to an alternative system – it is about conformity, obedience, and compliance in accordance with Milgram’s 1961 study at Yale University. The study measured the willingness of participants to obey an unseen, disembodied dictator and take part in actions that were at odds with their personal moral code. Throughout the film, Tyrell is in conflict with his feelings and often compelled by an overseeing invisible body to engage in activities that he may be ethically opposed to. When asked to attend a certain room within the Academy of Holodramatic Art, it is clear that the ‘request’ is less of a choice and more akin to selecting someone who has no say in the matter. Puck accedes to this entreaty without quibble. In fact, he appears lightheaded and without concern when being told to adjourn to a certain room or area within the academy. At other stages, Tyrell is conflicted when ordered to do certain things, yet he completes the action anyway. In addition, according to Robert Shiller’s 2000 findings regarding Milgram’s original study, people have learned that when an expert advises them that a certain action is okay, they accept the status quo even though their personal experience suggests the opposite. Puck embodies mute acquiescence with the slightest tinge of dissent.
The action of framing within the film almost becomes a second cast member – the background stays in focus as Puck exits the scene, remaining in situ while Tyrell is absent. It seems the ebb and flow of the tide, watching the sunset, and witnessing the jetty of the title become the heart of the movie – a living, breathing, sentient being in addition to Tyrell himself. The director forces the viewer to become the camera, that all-seeing eye that focuses and sees Tyrell come into view. The audience is bearing witness to what ensues. This moving lens is reminiscent of the opening credits of every James Bond film – the roving eye of the camera, the fixing of the subject, rendering flesh to the image and drawing audience attention to what is important. There are tangible nods to Dziga Vertov’s 1929 silent masterpiece, Man With a Movie Camera, as scenes fade in and out – almost like the action of a human eye blinking in the brightness of day, gazing at the unfolding drama.
The score of Drone Bone Jetty is the third cast member. Little John Nee as Puck Tyrell is both composer and player. The blend of notes tumbles in rapid succession, with rigid atonality while remaining sonorous and melodic. There are apt crescendos in moments of tension, bringing to mind Chris Marker’s beautiful sci-fi romantic screenshot story-board drama, La Jetée (1962), where the main protagonist is locked inside a strange new world filled with weird science. Twelve Monkeys (1995) is Terry Gilliam’s homage to La Jetée, and it too follows the line of art imitating life. The Troy Twins (an imaginary set of non-identical players who star in the eerie and wonderful cabaret of which Puck Tyrell is part) are connected to the image of the swan (witnessed in later scenes), and both are linked to Helen of Troy, the fabled beauty who was the indirect source of the Trojan War.
Drone Bone Jetty is a perfect palimpsest – multi-layered, brilliantly cut, a gem of stratum upon stratum with the most subtle of nuances. Words atop words. A trove of understanding that neither bends nor curves but accedes fully to compassion and the act of living.
Drone Bone Jetty screened on 25th July at Galway Film Fleadh 2021.
