16 posts tagged “poetics of annihilation”
“Purple 2008” by Jenny Holzer states reports of torture, from the victims, perpetrators and observers.
In this Israeli documentary, the filmmaker comes to terms with his memory loss around his participation in the Israeli war in Lebanon, and his role as facilitator/witness to horrible slaughters of Palestinians in that war.
The animation is beautiful, and allows the audience to come closer to an incredibly difficult topic. It allows the viewer to take the journey with him as he comes to terms with the horrors of war.
Most remarkably, the film was made with the full support of the Israeli government, and received 6 Israeli 'academy awards', while presenting the troubling reality that Israeli troops facilitated a slaughter that echoed the reality of the Nazi slaughter of Jews in the concentration camps - a theme brought up by the film itself.
I went to see it last night when my friend called me up and invited me. She said, "Its animated, its a journey into the past to deal with war trauma memory, it's right up your alley". And so it was.
I learned alot from the techniques of that film. I know I need to make longer pieces in order to draw the viewer in slowly, bring them closer to the difficulty of human violence and loss. This film taught me a great deal about creating that journey for an audience, and making it palatable enough to watch it.
The barbarism of war as 12-tone opera in the Germanic tradition, dehumanized soldiers eventually rape the heroine. The composer, Bernd Alois Zimmermann, referred to his work as a comedy; however, he went on to commit suicide in 1970.
Full description of the work is (of course) in The New York Times.
This sounds like a haunting collection of photographs to explore, of stories to consider. The abandoned lives of those committed who never re-emerged from asylums. The Lives They Left Behind : Suitcases From a State Hospital Attic. By Darby Penney and Dr. Peter Stastny. Bellevue Literary Press. 205 pages. $25.
on current, with commentary
A nonlinear map of the echoes of loss still ringing through the greater Pittsburgh area, via images of Braddock and stories I've collected since I moved here in 2002.
