Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Robinson In Ruins



"Patrick Keiller presenta en la próxima edición de Punto de Vista, dentro de La Región Central, su última obra, Robinson in Ruins, un ensayo visual sobre las reliquias del esplendor pasado en un tiempo de colapso económico. La película es la esperada continuación de London (1994) y Robinson in Space (1997), en las que estudiaba el paisaje y la geografía económica británica, tema que también abordaba en Dilapidated Dwelling (2000). Este será el estreno en España de la película, tras su paso por los festivales de cine de Venecia, Londres, Nueva York y Vancouver.
El film aborda el viaje imaginario de un estudiante excéntrico y rebelde que deambula por Oxfordshire y Berkshire (sur de Inglaterra) con una vieja videocámara. La narración, añadida después, comienza advirtiendo que Robinson salió de la prisión de Edgcott hace poco tiempo y llegó a la ciudad más cercana buscando un sitio desde donde mirar. “Él creía que si observaba el paisaje minuciosamente, éste le revelaría la base molecular de acontecimientos históricos y le permitiría ver el futuro. También se creía capaz de comunicarse con una serie de criaturas no humanas que le ayudarían a salvar el planeta”. Como transfondo, una crisis económica mundial, la guerra de Afganistán y el cambio climático." Punto de Vista

Murphy Jax - Its The Music (Mike Dunn Vocals)

TEVO HOWARD

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Selection Tiger Awards for Short Films

The Rotterdam Tiger Awards Competition for Short Films 2011 comprises twenty-eight films, ranging in length from six to fifty-two minutes. Five short films will see their world premieres in Rotterdam.

For the Rotterdam Tiger Awards Competition for Short Films’ Jury the IFFR welcomes Fiona Tan, an artist known for her audiovisual installations, films and photographic works (The Netherlands), Anocha Suwichakornpong, filmmaker and Tiger Award winner for MUNDANE HISTORY and Thom Andersen, filmmaker, film critic and lecturer (USA). The Jury will hand out the three equal Tiger Awards for Short Film (3,000 Euros) to the winning filmmakers during the VPRO Late Night Talk Show on Monday evening January 31.

The Rotterdam Tiger Awards Competition for Short Films is supported by the Chief Marketing Office Rotterdam.

  • 1989 (Den gang jeg var fem år gammel) / 1989 (When I Was Five Years Old), Thor Ochsner, Denmark, 2010, 11’
  • Slow Action, Ben Rivers, United Kingdom , 2011, 45’, world premiere
  • Players, Pilvi Takala, Finland, Netherlands, 2010, 8’
  • Pastourelle, Nathaniel Dorsky, USA, 2010, 16’, European premiere
  • I lupi / The Wolves, Alberto De Michele, Italy, 2011, 17’, world premiere
  • A Short Film About War, Jon Thomson, Alison Craighead, United Kingdom, 2010, 10’
  • End Transmission, James T. Hong, Chen Yin-Ju, Taiwan, Nederland, Germany, 2010, 17’, international premiere
  • Lesser Apes, Emily Vey Duke & Cooper Battersby, Canada, 19’, world premiere
  • Stardust, Nicolas Provost, Belgium, 2010, 20’
  • These Hammers Don't Hurt Us, Michael Robinson, USA, 2010, 13’, European premiere
  • Maska, Brothers Quay, Poland, 2010, 24’
  • Khleb dlya pticy / Bread for Bird, Aleksandra Strelyanaya, Russia, 2010, 26’
  • Beyond-ism, Sun Xun, China, 2010, 8, international premiere
  • Maria Theresia und ihre 16 Kinder / Maria Theresia and her 16 Children, Roland Rauschmeier & Ulu Braun, Austria, Germany, 2010, 30’, international premiere
  • Versions, Oliver Laric, Germany, North-Korea, 2010, 9’
  • Tse / Out, Roee Rosen, Israel, 2010, 34’
  • Jan Villa, Natasha Mendonca, USA, India, 2010, 20’
  • A History of Mutual Respect, Gabriel Abrantes, Daniel Schmidt, Portugal, 2010, 23’
  • Home Movie, John Price, Canada, 2010, 27’
  • Mercúrio / Mercury, Sandro Aguilar, Portugal, 2010, 18’
  • After Empire, Herman Asselberghs, Belgium, 2011, 52’, world premiere
  • Lubaben, Eva Pervolovici, France, Romenië, 2011, 30’, world premiere
  • Otolith III, The Otolith Group, United Kingdom, 2010, 49’
  • The Story of Elfranko Wessels, Erik Moskowitz & Amanda Trager, USA, Canada, 2011, 16’, world premiere
  • Mirages, Emanuel Licha, Canada, France, 2010, 19’
  • It, Heat, Hit, Laure Prouvost, United Kingdom, 2010, 6’
  • Immortal Woman, Jakrawal Nilthamrong, Thailand, 2010, 9, European premiere
  • La dame au chien / The Lady with the Dog, Damien Manivel, France, 2010, 16’

Saturday, January 08, 2011

CARLOS BOYERO / JORDI COSTA



"En una emblemática escena de esta película tan judía que logra que la filmografía de Woody Allen parezca obra de un gentil, Larry Gopnik, el sufrido profesor de física que la protagoniza, culmina su lección sobre el Principio de Incertidumbre de Heisenberg en la esquina de una pizarra. La cámara abre el campo y subraya la insignificancia de Gopnik bajo un inmenso encerado en el que se desgrana la fórmula matemática de esa teoría que desarticula la fiabilidad de toda certeza. Un tipo serio enlaza, vía Heisenberg, con El hombre que nunca estuvo allí y mantiene cierta afinidad con Barton Fink, pero también ofrece la clave para desvelar la estructura profunda del grueso de la obra coeniana, que apunta a la inoperancia de toda construcción humana (ya sea un género cinematográfico o, como aquí, un legado religioso) para capturar una verdad.

Fieles a su juego de dislocaciones, los Coen levantan su particular ejercicio sobre el angst suburbial a lo Revolutionary Road sobre sus recuerdos de infancia en el ritualizado microcosmos de una comunidad judía envasada al vacío en Minneapolis: el pulso entre el exceso de contenido (la Torah) y el defecto de sentido (la vida) centra el que quizás sea el trabajo más sincero del privilegiado tándem, que aquí no busca hacer nuevos amigos." Costa

"Leo con progresiva e hipnótica fascinación Dietario voluble, de Enrique Vila-Matas, libro tan inclasificable como apasionante, reflexión inquietante sobre la propia vida y la literatura. Ese libro está habitado parcialmente, entre mis muchas fobias razonables, por agradecidas y complejas loas a Antonioni, a Godard, a Sebald, a tanto creador que me espanta. Hay un fulano con traje abotonado y con bombín, llamado Kafka, que ocupa muchas citas en el dietario de su heredero barcelonés, incluido un sarcástico apunte en el que asegura (la cita es de memoria desvalida, no tengo ordenador ni el asquerosamente sabio Google) que "todo el mundo se ha hecho especialista en el mundo de Kafka, excepto el propio Kafka". Me cuentan que este maravilloso dietario se publicaba exclusivamente en la edición de este periodico en Cataluña. Y no entiendo que la gran literatura sea estratégicamente localista en la esfera de la opinión. Como lector de periódicos (de esa cosa tan costumbrista y aceleradamente anacrónica de leer un periódico en compañía del cuarto de baño), seguiré dando por justificado el euro y pico que cuesta el diario, a cambio de paladear en EL PAÍS cualquier cosa que lleve la firma de Vila-Matas, Enric González, Carlin, Muñoz Molina, Millás, Savater, El Roto, Forges y otros muchos opiáceos opinadores. Exagero: algunos otros.
No es casual que identifique la gozosa lectura de ese incomparable dietario con las sensaciones que me provoca Un tipo serio, la última, densa, excéntrica, irónica, judaica, muy personal entrega de unos hermanos con un cerebro, una sensibilidad y una personalidad que han logrado eso tan extraño de que Hollywood tenga que transigir con sus artísticas manías mientras que sigan atrayendo mercado.
Un tipo serio tiene aroma de Kafka, de la inexactitud de las certidumbres, de gente presuntamente normal destruida por el destino, de la ponzoñosa excentricidad amenazando a la engañosa normalidad, pero también te remite a los universos más desasosegantes de los Coen (no los mejores, para mí nunca han sido tan magistrales como adaptando fielmente a Hammett y a McCarthy en esas dos obras maestras tituladas Muerte entre las flores y No es país para viejos), a las imágenes, los diálogos, las visiones, la estructura, la atmósfera, la angustia, la tragicomedia, el tono sombriamente onírico, de esas dos películas tan agobiantes, extremas, hermosas, tenebrosas y raras que son Barton Fink y El hombre que nunca estuvo allí.
También hay ecos de El gran Lebowski, película de abusivo culto para fumetas lúdicos y con pedigrí libertario e intelectual y de la mezcla de esperpento, humor macabro y realismo de la modélica Fargo. Un tipo serio utiliza el lenguaje puro de los Coen para narrar historias de gente inquietante en situaciones límite. Es el lujo que se permiten los paradójicos triunfadores de un sistema en el que se lo montaban de guerrilleros. Utilizan actores desconocidos, desconciertan a los no iniciados, son tan chulos y tan auténticos que se permiten un recordatorio entre naturalista y surrealista de las ortodoxas vivencias de su niñez, del conocimiento exhaustivo de la Torah para poder apreciar sus mensajes, construyen imágenes como la de esa mujer sola, distante y desnuda que no hubiera desdeñado pintar Edward Hopper, retratan personajes pintorescos y estados de ánimo cercanos al suicidio.
Es una película tan exótica como atractiva, el compromiso de dos hermanos que yendo de marginales, de enrollados, de mantenerse auténticos en el gran mercadeo haciendo otro tipo de cine, el que sale de sus mordaces personalidades y de su visión sarcástica de la vida cotidiana, consiguen entre triunfo y fracaso seguir haciendo lo que les sale de los genitales. Con frecuencia, me irritan. Aquí me dejan pensando, divertido, intrigado, deprimido, con una sensación muy rara. También grata." Boyero

Tuesday, January 04, 2011

TOOP

There is a conversation between place and person that is articulated through sound, in much the same way that the same or similar conversations are visible as buildings, hedgerows, landfill sites, illuminated signs, motorways unspooling into night or plastic bags floating in the ocean. The relationship of person to place is more straightforward, perhaps, in the reading of such material signs: evidence of their history is easier to track through written records, oral history, photographs, film, a shock of sudden disappearance or the lingering sight of decay. Then how can we listen to sounds never before noticed, sounds long vanished, or sounds that are not sounds, exactly, but more like the fluctuations of light, weather and the peculiar feeling that can arise when there is a strong awareness of place? Sounds can linger as vital presence, an intervention that existed for a time to reconfigure environment, and whose absence makes us pause for thought or deeper feeling, in our walking, working and waiting; our agitated, ceaseless inner thoughts; our shopping and drift; our anxieties, pains and pleasure.

What goes unnoticed in the general run of life still exists, in its colouration, its echoes, its affects, its atmospheres and definitions of place. An unnatural silence, a bell in the night, the dizzying flight of swallows, a sharp cry across the river whose audible flowing is a constant and so would be missed if it ever froze or dried up, the murmur of a quiet pub, wind rippling through grass and at the far edges of hearing there is the scoot of a dry leaf caught in the breeze, the bringing of the milk and the emptying of the bins, a particular street in the hush of early morning, and maybe the name of that street, rolling around in the imagination with the patina of its age and the mystery of its sound.

A few years ago an e-mail arrived, via my website, through which I learned about Steve, previously unknown to me, a man in Havre, Montana, walking through the drizzle and listening to a CD on his Discman (already the story is dated by this technological detail). The CD is Fennesz Live In Japan, by the Viennese musician, Christian Fennesz, and as Steve walks, his CD skips and glitches of its own volition. The technical breakdown adds to the allure of the music, he says, apologising for sharing such a modest story. “Plus,” he adds, “who else am I gonna tell about it in Havre?”

Modest the story may be, but I like it for a variety of reasons. Steve is out there, in the rain, walking through landscape and the elements with his hearing transported to a live show in Japan. Fennesz performs on a laptop computer, but his starting point can be a guitar, building a song on his first instrument, then transforming it through a computer software program. He creates glitches, hitches, loops, distortions. Listening to his records seems to me not unlike eating Japanese natto, those pungent fermented soybeans that extend out into thin strings as you lift them to your mouth. Fennesz pulls his melancholy tunes in all directions without totally working them out of shape.

Then Steve’s Discman has something to say about this, adding another layer of glitch and skip to the mix. Steve enjoys the accidents, though his pleasure in technological imperfections may be a little esoteric for his friends in Montana. Never mind; he can contact a stranger on the other side of the world, elicit a response, and so feel that bit less isolated with this very personal, and perhaps slightly eccentric experience.

Penetrating to the smallest details of hearing, whether as a listening practice or methodology of sound making, may seem to be an entrancement with silence, peace, meditation, all those religious and quasi-religious practices that fall under the rubric of spirituality, but really, it’s an engagement with the noise that exists at all levels of the dynamic spectrum. In his book Microsound, Curtis Roads has described transient audio phenomena and microsounds as ubiquitous in the natural world. Some of these may be what he calls subsonic intensities, those sounds too soft to be heard by the human ear such as a caterpillar moving across a leaf; others are audible but in their brevity as microevents, their infinitely subtle fluctuations, or their placing at the threshold of audible frequencies, they lie outside the conventional notion of pitch, tone and timbre. They are difference; the differentiation of one voice from another, or the activation of one instrument from another. “One could explore the microsonic resources of any musical instrument in its momentary bursts and infrasonic flutterings,” Roads writes, “(a study of traditional instruments from this perspective has et to be undertaken).”

In the springtime at night, I sit outside in my garden sometimes, waiting quietly in the dark until I can hear the tiny chewing sounds of slugs and snails eating the leaves of my plants. I have to allow every part of myself to slow down, to forget what has happened earlier and what might happen later, to use the ‘emptiness of attention’ that I learned from Anton Ehrenzweig when I read The Hidden Order of Art in my late teens. To use a spatial analogy, it’s like descending in a slow lift, moving down through the floors and stopping somewhere near the basement of hearing, where the tiniest of sounds seems amplified. Once down at this level, sounds that are normally considered quiet can shock the system. As snails move from leaf to leaf, snail’s pace of course, the leaf they vacate snaps back into its unburdened position with a bang. This is more disturbing than peaceful.

On a still night in spring, in the darkness, there is little to see other than the static design of my garden, obscured by a shadow world. What I hear is a dynamic sonification of the animate life hidden within that shadow world, eating its ways through hosta, iris, and other succulent leaves, and so the experience of being within that particular place, also hearing the atmospherics of late night traffic noise, spiked by drunken shouts from distant streets and the occasional wailing police siren, contains endless variety at a level of perception so remote as to demand attention that is both focussed and relaxed. Detail is picked out from a low noise floor that I can only describe as air sound – a sound that evades analysis or recording because it combines the sound of our internal functioning, the body sounds we would hear in the total silence of an anechoic chamber, with a blend of near-field and distant-field atmospherics. This undifferentiated background can be comforting, in the immediate present as an indication that life is perpetuated, the world still turns, and at the level of emotion and memory, a reminder of the sonic presence of loudspeakers, amplifier hum, recording noise, ear sound and human presence – the sound of a person sleeping, for example - but it acts also as a grainy context in which detail feels spatially settled.