Julika Rudelius keenly criticizes important issues in contemporary society by interviewing the individuals that comprise various groups such as politicians, middleaged women, salarymen, immigrants, and teenagers and showing their daily lives.
Forever features five women past middle- age who are interviewed about their thoughts on beauty and happiness, which are both stereotypical and individual. In this film, the artist’s voice is withheld, but the questions may be inferred from the women’s answers. They speak about how to attain beauty, its connection to privilege and power, and their belief that their inner beauty is related to their physical beauty. Their confident and casual attitude toward the camera while posing poolside at luxury houses and taking Polaroid self-portraits affirms their strong self-consciousness and pride.
The relationship between beauty and happiness as reflected by their behavior and words connote and overlap private meaning and public meaning, psychologically manipulating satisfaction and selfexposure in a simultaneous manner. Since today’s perspectives on beauty—especially outer beauty—are intimately linked with social contexts such as power, status and money, Rudelius reflects this social obsession which has become the status quo.
