In the chapter «Sea Foam,» from Cesare Pavese’s Dialogues with Leuco, the poetess Sappho speaks with the nymph Britomartis about desire, flight, and death. Legend has it that after the tedium of heartbreak, Sappho threw herself into the sea. Sappho became waves and foam, but neither her desire nor her restlessness were extinguished. «In the sea, everything dies and comes back to life,» she tells Britomartis. Desire constitutes an essential part of being.

This film combines ancient history with the contemporary world. Two actresses play the part of Sappho and Britomartis and send each other text messages with fragments of «Sea Foam.» We also hear and read other poems and scientific reflections on the sea. Shot in 16mm, Tu me abrasas explores the power of the relationship between cinema and literature. The film demands the viewers’ attention and active participation. The image is a poetic, flexible, and moldable element. A word is brought to mind after repetitively relating it to an image. The freedom and automation of the editing creates a mechanism in which the literary universe penetrates the imaginative cinematographic one and results in something greater than the sum of its parts.

Alejandra Meneses