Time was moving backwards; but only for him. He was moving back through time encountering on the way people’s reactions to a life he had already lived – but had no memory of… he believed that as he stood there, the cars, the service station, the motorway, all were moving inexorably back with him into the past. If he stayed there long enough he would see them slowly being built around him until the last brick was removed, the last hole was filled, the last concrete mixer and earth digger drive away, the last surveyor gather up his measuring rods and set off across the green countryside back to the offices where they were drawing up the plans to purchase the fields. A love story, a simple allegory, and a collection of conceits about time taken to an extreme with results that are both tragic and comic.
‘Forgetting is the story of two lovers, one moving backwards in time, one moving relentlessly forwards. This double movement is a poignant metaphor conveying the way love’s moment shifts, moves on, into something else. The floundering hypothesis of the character without a childhood, faced with the lover’s expectation of an exchange of telling anecdotes, are painfully funny, and remind us how much love is about memory.’ Leslie Dick
‘This disturbing, atmospheric and deeply poetic film could almost be described as a science fiction mystery; yet as well as questioning our attitude to memory and the past, it also comments poignantly on the nature of relationships and the changing patterns of the personality…Bush’s film is imbued with a strong sense of narrative and a cinematic quality that has you riveted to the screen’ Bob Phillips – What’s On
CREDITS
(34 minutes , colour, 1990,16mm)
Written, produced, directed and edited by Paul Bush
Featuring Jan Pearson and Richard Hawley
Camera – John Stewart
Sound – Ronnie Fowler
Designer – Caroline Evans
Production Manager – Carol Lemon
Music – Geoffrey Bush
Singer – Susannah Self
Copyright Paul Bush 1990
Gold Plaque for short drama – 1991 Chicago Film Festival
