Experimental Film
On April 24th and 25th I went to the European Media Arts Festival in Osnabrueck, Germany with three classmates on a trip for our Media Writing class. The festival includes videos, film, installations and photography. The work I am going to focus on is the short films. The films ranged from narrative films to films that were entirely abstract.
A few of the films which really struck a chord with me were: Nous (by Oliver Hems, France, 2007) a narrative film about the death of a man forgotten by the world, Contre-Jour (Christoph Girardet & Matthias Muller, Germany, 2009), a combination of film footage from the silent film era, arranged in three sections across a divided screen, which while without a defined story line, has a build up of various emotions, and produced a strong response, and Wound Footage (Thorsten Fleisch, Germany, 2009) an abstract film made using found color footage which had been deliberately damaged and manipulated, and was both beautiful and violent. All of the films which I found to be successful shared the common trait of transporting me out of my own life and thoughts and taking me somewhere I felt I hadn’t been before, while vaguely reminding me of some incident or feeling in my past.
Some of the films at the festival were just badly made, or very hard to engage in. One of my classmates said that he felt like hitting the directors of the particularly pretentious or frustrating films. We all had this; anger at the director for the time wasted on something that had no purpose. “Purpose” is a very open ended term with regards to this festival, given that the subtitle is “media arts festival.” Often the purpose was just to give a certain feeling, capture a moment or to show something beautiful.
Even having limited experience with film and video, I can say that some of the directors did not receive harsh enough critiques of their work while in school, or while presenting their work to others. And many needed to become more deeply acquainted with editing. Just because a video is conceptual, or experimental, or “art” does not mean it should be boring. While art doesn’t necessarily have to have a particular audience in mind, or even be concerned with the audience reaction, it should come from a sincere place, and present something genuine. A film should not make someone who has studied visual art for several years, and thus has an extended amount a patience for anything visually interesting, no matter how abstract or impenetrable, hope and pray that the film will end soon because it is becoming painful to continue watching.
There was one section of several films which seemed to be entirely about trees, or at least that was the common tie. There was very little other content is these films beside footage of trees. Someone explained to me that the Germans are obsessed with trees, and the forest, in the same way that the Dutch are with the sea, which explained the focus but not the purpose behind the films.
People sometimes think that if they don’t “get” art it is because they are too stupid. I think it’s more often that the piece is not communicating with the viewer. It doesn’t matter if the audience doesn’t understand the film, what matters is if they react to it, if they feel something, some sort of response.
I feel like filmmakers and video artists have more of a responsibility to make something that involves and draws in their audience because their medium requires so much commitment.
Film requires focus and time. With abstract art or still images, you can look at it for as long as you want, or just glance at it. The viewer determines the amount of focus put into it. The director of a film, especially at a festival like this, has the viewer almost captive. The viewer gives up their time and their eyes and their ears to this unknown person, expecting or at least hoping it will be worth their time. The audience becomes vulnerable to the director. The director holds the audience in their hands. Film is the most manipulative of all mediums, the most impactful experience after firsthand experience. Therefore directors should give us something worth that trust. Something at least sincere, if the audience is going to open themselves up, so must the director.
One of the other students who attended and I were discussing how interesting some of the videos would be as atmospheric pieces at a club. Where it could be enjoyed with music, amongst people. It would be an interesting tie between the very non-commercial world of experimental film and the entirely commercial world of making people pay to drink and dance in a specific location. Two films which we drew this conclusion from were; Memory Fades (Carl Brown, Canada, 2009, 36:00 min), and Trees of Syntax, Leaves of Axis (Daïchi Saïto, Canada, 2009, 10:00 mins). These two films were examples of too long but very beautiful and interesting abstract films would be very suited to an environment outside of a theater.
(For a good example of a film which combines the forest, sincere feeling, beautiful imagery and good editing, see my classmate Laura Oñate Madrazo’s film, made for the Mobile Media class, to be linked here as soon as it is available online.)
