Experimental cinema

Experimental cinema

Eng

SPACE, INSCRIBED BY TIME: THE SNOWMAN BY PHIL SOLOMON

By Rushnan Jaleel

In Phil Solomon’s The Snowman (1995), water-logged home movies culled from an unknown archive are rephotographed to enhance their craquelure. The film evokes Wallace Steven’s eponymous poem and serves as a kaddish (a prayer of mourning) for the artist’s father. This would mark the second time that Solomon would memorialise a loved one through his work, with the first being Remains to be Seen (1998), which featured images of his mother on her deathbed. However there are almost no references to Solomon’s father (1) in The Snowman; he is buried in the emulsion of the film strip, under layers of corrugated memories.

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DIRK DE BRUYN’S FILMS: PLACES AND IDENTITY

By Tara Judah

I am “waiting” for The Death of Place (2013) to begin. I soon realise, however, that the journey, and the film, has already started. Dirk de Bruyn is taking me with him, to interrogate place. Only it isn’t where I think it is.

The place de Bruyn has in mind is an intersection – and a little less where than when. It is the sum total of sensory affect: visual and aural. But it is also preoccupied with time, specifically the past. As each manic frame dances before my eyes, I try to locate at least the death of such a “place”.

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