My take on the feature film “ERASING EDEN”
Well, it’s me. It’s him. It’s T.I.M. At American Film Market, I met with Beth Dewey, Head of Acquisitions at Indie Rights, for the first time. It was wonderful to connect with her on a personal level. I asked her which one I should see from her catalog of movies, and her response was Erasing Eden. I asked why it was important to her, and she said a lot of her personal struggles went into making the movie: going through a divorce and dealing with her own alcoholism at the time.
Over the course of a year, Beth wrote and directed Erasing Eden, about a woman who self-sabotages through alcoholism when good shit happens in her life. Eden desires to be happy but doesn’t think she deserves it. Through a series of events, Eden turns to alcohol to numb the pain she feels toward life and herself. She fights the urge, but it doesn’t last. The next day, after a binge-drinking evening, she wakes up in the middle of nowhere with a broken jaw, a gash on her head, a sprained ankle, signs she had been sexually assaulted, and no care as to what happened the night before. It’s as though she expected it, and she needed to keep moving because it was just another day for her. Eden then wanders around aimlessly, trying to find her way home. One hitchhiker ride after another. Unable to physically talk, people mistake her for a meth addict, homeless, and looking for her next fix. One low point after another and a few mental breakdowns, she finds her way home. Even with people caring for her well-being, she still doesn’t want to be a burden and carries the weight of it on her own. Ultimately, she doesn’t have self-love even when she sends herself daily messages to not fuck it up.
It was a very avant-garde ride that sent you through an emotional turmoil rollercoaster. Eden’s despair is evident, but so is her methods of self-sabotage. After riding the wave and watching her go through all the events she did, you hope it will be enough of a wake-up call in the end. Instead, you did not get a happy ending. And that’s life; not everything ends with a skip down the road, holding hands with the one you love with a “And they live happily Ever After” following them on the screen until they disappear over the hill.
Personally, I will say that I have always appreciated when a story doesn’t have a happy ending. When somebody does something for the sake of making a film, not because they’re trying to appeal to a certain demographic or a certain group or to make a cash grab, it becomes less about the art and more about the money.
For example, looking at my own work, the Christian nudist film I’m making in January (Naked and Unashamed …as God intended: the Pastor Jim Moore story) Who’s the audience? It’s not nudists. They tend to steer liberal hippies going to Burning Man. It’s not for Christians. They don’t steer getting naked in social groups. So, who the hell are we making it for? Exactly. I love the fact that Beth did a similar thing. I’d like thank Amber Hassler from Twister of Mystery for her invaluable assistance with this review. So, you see all the amazing and wonderful people you can meet at AFM? See the movie for yourself FREE here:
About Author
