The Sonnet Project Sonnet #51 (2013– ) Online

This sonnet follows a previous film of sonnet 50, which was filmed at JFK airport. In this text we continue that thought but move to the journey back, when the same steed will seem slow when it now seems fast, and that it will not be able to keep up with the speed with which the man's heart and mind is moving back to his home. The film is given the location of a tram for this and as such it perhaps limits what the film can do because it is very busy, public place with very little space to do anything out of the ordinary. Accordingly the film plays it fairly straight and makes it about the guy's commute to work, which seems painfully quick in taking him away from home, and then the return home in the evening which he rushes through and runs from the tram faster than it can move.

It is a decent delivery in terms of footage as it shoots in and around the tram pretty well, so we get the idea and we don't get too many shots of awkward tourists looking at the camera in a self-conscious manner. The delivery of the text is a different matter though and I wasn't sure it worked. It started out with a very slow paced and dreary tone to the voice which, although I didn't like its effect on my ears, I did like that it fitted the text. My assumption was that we would build speed and enthusiasm as we move into the second part of the film, but it didn't happen; instead the same pace and tone continues through to the end, which I felt really robbed the later sentences of the excitement and longing that I got when I read it. I understand that the "returning" text is just being thought while the writer is on his outward journey so this could explain that lack of thrill, but at the same time the film shows the return as actually happening.

It is still a decent film and the slow pace of delivery makes the text easy to follow, but it is a film that seems limited and with missed opportunity. The pacing of the narration was self-imposed but perhaps the location did not help too much; I would have loved to see the location be the back of a NYC taxi – a most iconic of locations and one that (although maybe expensive if done on the meter!) would have given more to work with.