Subversive Saturday: Visual Training (1969)
Cast: Trix Zwartjes, Mike, Christian Manders
Director: Frans Zwartjes
Country: Netherlands
Genre: Short
Watch it: Here
The following review is a continuation of Matthew Blevins’ Subversive Saturdays series.
A Keatonesque figure illuminates the blank canvas of the cinema screen with his spectral visage. We are uncertain of his identity, and can only guess at his gender as his gaunt figure is juxtaposed against the soft features of two female forms. There is a melancholic urgency in his hollow eyes as he stares in to our souls and plants a single question…
Do you see?
I confidently exclaim “Yes!”, as I recognize the seeds of Vienna Aktionism in his deconstruction of visual taboo. I see how socially prescribed visual taboo has echoed down through the generations to create a feeling of illogical unease as we are physically affected by images that our logical mind knows cannot harm us. I see how my pulse quickens, my palms sweat, and I have physiological reactions to two-dimensional images.
He seems disinterested in my rationalizations and obtuse analyses. He is currently consumed with the task of consuming, and mixing sexual imagery with the biological necessities of our bodily functions creating a reactionary response from our subconscious as we attempt to outsmart the image with our capacity for rationality.
His shadowy face suggests Conrad Viedt’s somnambulist in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. He breaks from the chaotic ritual of his task to look back upon us with alienated dismay. His image again suggesting a single question…
Do you see?
His shadowy face suggests Conrad Viedt’s somnambulist in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. He breaks from the chaotic ritual of his task to look back upon us with alienated dismay.
This time I’m sure I have the answers he seeks. I go on about the alienated and marginalized figures throughout the course of human civilization. The misfits and artistic outcasts that have spent their lives ill at ease with the objective certainty of the status-quo, how now matter how many times that sort of certainty has lead men to atrocious acts in the arrogance of their own righteousness, they still remain steadfast in their certainty. I see the impositions of my own philosophies as they shape my perception of the images as they continue chipping away at the boundaries of my subconscious mind. I see that everything I know is the direct result of my imperfect perceptibility and the unconscious prejudices of classification as I attempt to fit everything in to a neat order because of my obtuse need to classify and contextualize everything I see, a sin that we must all learn to unlearn.
The gaunt figure is disinterested in my thoughts as he continues his actions. He covers a naked woman in unknown food items to create stark compositions that scream with visual taboo. His hair is matted with filth as the three figures roll around in their dehumanizing feast, stopping only to stare upon us with his haunted and accusatory eyes. There is a profound sadness in his face, but we do not know the source of his melancholy. He asks us again with his blame-filled eyes…
Do you see?
His hair is matted with filth as the three figures roll around in their dehumanizing feast, stopping only to stare upon us with his haunted and accusatory eyes.
The more I try to evade his question with inane rationalizations, the further alienated I become from their unnatural dinner party. I’m not sure I see what it is he so desperately needs me to see. I’m uncertain of the artistic motivation driving their tableaux vivant, but I turn off my neurotic need to classify, objectify, contextualize, and deconstruct every image I see. The screen fills with darkness and I become increasingly aware of my surroundings. A few blinks and the images will become nothing more than imperfect imprints in my short term memory. My certainty of the borders of the objects surrounding me is momentarily confused. In that brief moment between borrowing perception from a filmmaker’s lens and readjusting to my surroundings with a new outlook that fades as quickly and imperfectly as it appeared, I see.
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