Reviews of screenings from Images Festival 2012, Toronto, Canada.
Toronto's festival of "experimental and independent moving image culture" has now been at the cutting edge for twenty-five years. Screenings continue at Jackman Hall until April 21.
As Afterwards the Image Still Rings [shorts programme]
In a series of short films grouped together under the idea of looking, most of the entries brought forward the tensions with how we implicitly assume the objectivity and accuracy of what's in front of us. Turret (Dir: Björn Kämmerer, 2010, 10 min, 35mm, Austria) was the least concretely concerned with that, but its pure visual abstraction engaged at the level of trying to grasp at unlocking the patterns of the movements on the screen, followed by the viewer's attempt to think through what makes those patterns. Appearing at first as nothing more than a series of vertical lines moving back and forth across the screen, with time, one can grasp that it's a closeup of what appears to be a series of rotating windowpanes. Once it was clear that the movements are caused by a spinning object, it felt like a portrayal of the gentle side of the Master Control Program — and then after that, the need to "solve" the image receded and the pleasurable mesmerism of the whole thing took over.
Going into another kind of practical abstraction, 10Hz (Dir: Lucy Raven, 2012, 4 min, Audio, USA) has no visual element at all. Composed of film projector test tones, in the physical space of the dark theatre this was an interesting experience, with the sounds making long swoops from quiet to overwhelmingly loud. There was also one that didn't register much through the speakers, but sounded from the back of the hall like a projector about to seize up and implode.
The longest of the programme's selections, Printed Matter (Dir: Eitan Efrat, Sirah Foighel Brutmann, 2011, 28 min, 16mm, Belgium) used a unique method to investigate history and memory. The visual field consisted only of a light table with a series of photographic contact sheets being passed over it, while the unseen subject commented on the pictures, which were a cache from a photojournalist working in Israel. Pictures of the photographer's family were mixed in throughout, leading to a running commentary of both the personal and the political. Like memories, the soundtrack would sometimes get a bit untethered from the images on the screen. An interesting method of presenting the material, though the latter section (as the images shifted to negatives and the running commentary petered out) was less interesting. The silence and the procession of untethered images gave some cause to reflect on memories and history, but it could as easily have been trimmed down without losing any impact.
An inspired (and funny!) collaboration, Tape #158: Document 2B (Dir: Nahed Mansour, Kandis Friesen, 2010, 7 min, Video, Canada) presented footage from an unrealized documentary. An old woman spoke to an interviewer, surrounded by what appeared to be her mother and her son. As it progressed, there were increasing signs that something wasn't quite right with the translations provided by the subtitles. And indeed, as it turns out, Mansour fabricated them as a response to the found footage Friesen had provided. Obviously a comment on the unreliability of one of the "objective" elements on the screen, it also served as an indirect biography of the intervener, with Mansour drawing from her own experience of family dynamics to create a story for the figures on screen.
Another intervention into existing footage, Split Ends, I Feel Wonderful (Dir: Akosua Adoma Owusu, 2011, 4 min, Video, USA) was a success just for its redeployment of some shag carpet-era news footage and funky soundtrack. But instead of settling for pleasing kitsch, Owusu used this as a front in her personal investigation of the cultural politics of black hair styles, cutting and pasting some oppositional voices into the soundtrack with the same agility of the fragmented kaleidoscope visions on the screen.
The Observers (Dir: Jacqueline Goss, 2011, 67 min, Video, USA)
Using the patient observational techniques of a documentary crew, this feature delves into the "shrine of measurement" at the Mount Washington Observatory, perched atop the highest peak in the Northeastern United States. Though the "observers" that we follow on the screen are, in fact, actors, their naturalistic and affectless performances maintain the verité feel — and that's enhanced by the fact that the main characters here are the Observatory itself and the continuous gale-force wind that buffets it.
Following the trail of the seasons (and one slight, but unobtrusive intervention that comes as close as this film gets to "plot") we watch the solitary observers as work — measuring the weather, taking careful notes, and sometimes even observing the observations of their distant predecessors.
Besides plenty of time to enjoy the beauty of the mountain, the patient (and, ahem) observational style allows the viewer to reflect on the sheer hubris of facing up to the immensity of nature, of trying to reduce it through the act of measurement. And following the solitary workers (especially through the winter months) also creates a subtext playing off the long-running movie subgenre of "isolation-induced insanity".
The running time is just enough to let all of this unfold without ever feeling too indulgent. This is a film that falls through the cracks of easy categorization and demands patience from the viewer, but it is most definitely worth seeing.
Right Ascension [shorts programme]
I have no buzz radar for this festival, so as I emerged from the previous screening, I was somewhat surprised to find a sizable crowd of patrons already building up. This one didn't quite sell out Jackman Hall, but it was a robustly full house with more people than the previous two screenings combined. Re-igniting the festival's tradition of having a "Home Brew" screening dedicated to local talent, this programme put together nine selections loosely united around "considerations of the experience and representation of space". Of those, there were a couple that were oblique in a way that didn't register with me, but here's some comments on the ones that did.
If I were to say that Landscape Series #6, 10, 12 (Dir: Renee Lear, 2011, 3x3 min, Video, Canada) reminded me of screensavers, do understand that I mean that in the best possible way. Using footage from dying cameras, these visual fields are so abstracted that the only relationship to the landscapes they were footage of remains in their titles — #6 for example, is notated as "South-Facing Window View Between Long Branch and Exhibition Train Stations, Toronto (Enlarged 300%, Blurred 325%, Sharpened 1449% and Slowed Down to 10% of the Original Speed)". To my eye, that same clip registered as the random snow on the screen of an 8-bit arcade machine when it was first turned on. Which is to say there might be some conceptual points to be made in thinking about the links between the "real" and abstracted landscapes, but I dug it as groovy, fucked-up pixels. The silent visuals also cry out for a musical counterpoint, like the glitchy chip-bending tones I was imagining in my head. And as for the "utility" of these images, I reckon they'd look fantastic on a newfangled tablet — or as a screensaver, natch.
With quick abstracted cuts of flashing motion and ambiguous childish shouts, Wall of Death (Dir: John Creson, Adam Rosen, 2011, 3 min, Video, Canada) muses on the fine line between terror and glee. You can take your chances on the other rides, but this is the nearest to being alive.
Beginning with what appear to be shots of an alien landscape, it slowly becomes clear that Rock (Dir: Geoffrey Pugen, 2012, 8 min, Video, Canada) is actually just what its title says: a panoramic, closeup view of a mineral-flaked rock. Though ostensibly a commentary on representation in advertising, given that it was shot with the commercial tools and techniques, you rarely see advertising images dwell this sumptuously on anything. Ultimately, the fascinating textures and light patterns that emerge at this extremely micro-level examination are the piece's biggest reward.
Feeling like a well-matched pairing, Fresnel (Dir: Aubrey Reeves, 2011, 4 min, Super 8, Canada) and Temps Mort (Dir: Kyath Battie, 2011, 7 min, Video, Canada) both present architectural spaces in a manner evoking grim disquiet. The former, with its electroacoustic buzz and desaturated colours could be seen as an homage to 70's distopian sci-fi — the mirrored inverted pyramid and catwalks would be right at home in a Logan's Run-esque city. But knowing that the subject of the shot is the dome of the Reichstag building in Berlin adds layers of complexity. Battie's presentation of the beautiful brutalism of York University's campus is also drenched with a sense of dread, and its depopulated spaces could serve as establishing shots of a suspense flick. With a menacing soundtrack (lifted, it turns out, from Alien) the buzz of a flickering florescent bulb is enough to give a sense of unease. A well-done exercise in presenting mystery and atmosphere, this was the best piece of the programme.
While coming off as a bit of a lark, Connecting With Nature (Clint Enns, 2011, 2 min, Video, Canada) was also a roaring success, juxtaposing commercial footage of garden equipment with a televangelist's sermon to create an infomercial where rototilling to transcendence seemed like a viable product.
On the whole, an enjoyable assortment. What works for any particular viewer is going to vary, of course. One older gentleman seated in front of me sighed with loud exasperation through several of the pieces, and turned to his companion as the lights went up and said, "how many clichés did you catch?" Hopefully the mostly-younger cadre of film-makers represented in this selection (and it was very nice to see that all were in attendance) will yet find a way to shock and awe the fuddie-duddies in the paths before them.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment