The slow rhythm of regular breathing determines an analogous rhythm in the image: the fugue of a candle flame toward a virtual infinity generated by a lens with variable focal length. Each appearance of this vector (successive fixed positions of the zoom) corresponds to an equivalent interval of darkness, an identical number of unexposed stills. An attempt at metric cinema. The position of the flame varies slightly with each successive apparition and the displacement seems to stop for just a few seconds in order to introduce alternating stills in reverse order. Toward the end, the image of the flame is replaced by another luminous symbol: the foliage of large trees receiving light from the sun. The inspiration for this film, a “meditation machine,” comes from a visit to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, India, and from listening to the devotional music of Sunil Bhattacharya a resident in the Ashram. The first tests were conducted at Jorge Honik’s house in Argentine Patagonia in October 1975, while he was filming Passacaglia y Fuga (an extensive traveling in stop-motion). Aspiraciones was almost entirely edited, between the cameraman's room and the Buenos Aires Botanical Garden.
