“... but when Eve plucked the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, when she and Adam were driven from Paradise, there fell from the flaming sword of the cherub a spark into the nest of the bird, which blazed up forthwith... the bird perished in the flames; but from the red egg in the nest there fluttered aloft a new one - the one solitary Phoenix bird....” (from The Phoenix Bird by Hans Christian Andersen, 1850) The film is conceived as a free cinematic improvisation vaguely based on the myth of the Phoenix. According to Ovid, Phoenix is “a bird, which renews itself, and reproduces from itself”. The myth narrates that after certain centuries (500 or 1461 years) the bird prepares a pyre for herself from twigs of fragrant trees, lights a fire there and is consumed by it. The following day in the ashes a small worm is found which is transmuted into a small bird on the next day, and on the third the bird has the form of the Phoenix again. The film concentrate on a moment when the fire gives a birth to the bird: we will not see the actual creature but watch mythological flames transforming themselves into mystical ashes from which the new Phoenix would be born.
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