The present two films by Miljohn Ruperto test perception thresholds by conjuring liminal states of being between life and a possible beyond. Transitions from one form into the next are anticipated yet never total. This quizzical simultaneity of almost antagonist presences is held in place by dilating temporalities, startling processes of perceiving, believing, and knowing. 

Borrowing its title from the two-headed Roman god of transitions, beginnings and endings, Janus features the rabbit-duck illusion made famous by Wittgenstein. An emblem of our perceptive capacity, of both its potential and limitations, here the rabbit-duck is animated so that either creature appears on the cusp of death. Labored breath cycles serve as the chronometer of the repeated loop. Through the cinematic lens, the struggle becomes a melodrama, thereby beckoning the viewer to identify with this bivalent image.

Acting Exercise: Demon Possession documents a series of actors solitarily improvising a demon possession — or at least, the demon of their subjective imaginations. They attempt to dissolve the threshold between real and supernatural, mining their bodies for readable cues like grunts, cries, convulsions, and paralysis. The long duration of each take bloats the experience of time, either numbing or sharpening the viewer’s reason and critique. As in Janus, the viewer might choose to stretch or edge their perception, convincing themselves to be convinced.