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mbcoldstorage · 3 years

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Transcendence of the analog image

https://forum.arsenal-berlin.de/forum-forum-expanded/programm-forum/ste-anne/essay-transzendenz-des-analogbildes/

"Art is magic, freed from the lie of being truth" (Theodor W. Adorno)

A return to a culture of origin - or an attempt at self-determination that can only succeed if you make peace with your past? STE moves between these two poles . ANNEfor a long time without clearly giving preference to one direction over the other. In any case, it is a film with biographical borrowings: The title of the feature film debut by the Canadian Rhayne Vermette refers to the city in the province of Manitoba where her family once settled. Even before any narrative constriction, there is a poetic evocation: Vermette's film is an ode to the land of her ancestors, who, like herself, are members of the Métis, an ethnic minority that, at the end of the 18th century, emerged from the union of French-born settlers and indigenous people Population groups emerged.

In the film, the land, both a visual object and a “state of mind”, appears as close as it is remote. Close, because for Vermette it is a familiar environment, a landscape that she knows all too well; enraptured because the landscape in STE. ANNE does not offer a realistic setting through which the protagonists move habitually. Rather, it is de-familialized here from the start: Even the first recordings of the film, shot at the interface between day and night, allow viewers to pass a kind of threshold, enter a twilight zone . One looks at painting-like images of a steppe-like nature with mighty cloud formations, in addition to the chirping of birds and a restrained ambient sound that briefly swells threateningly.

Scar in the family structure

The woman who tiredly walks through one of these pictures is called Renée. Years after her mysterious disappearance, she returns to the settlement where her daughter Athene lives, who has since been raised like her own child by Renée's brother Modeste and his wife Eleanor. Before we learn anything about Renée's motives, Athene addresses her mother, who was believed to be lost - in an intimate voiceover monologue, she expresses the hope that she can finally get closer and share the spirits that haunt her with her.

Vermette embeds this inner monologue by Athene in a scene of communal commonality, the film keeps coming back to scenes of this kind: people gathered around a campfire, a folk song is sung; People who gather at the table. After the atmospherically ambiguous beginning, the joy of meeting now prevails. However, the separation has left a scar in the family structure - not least, athenes self-image is challenged. Does she now have two mothers, is she “just lucky,” as she once put it to a friend?

For both her mother Renée and herself, the reunification leads to an attempt to get to know her own roots better. Vermette tells this process of approaching and confronting the past with the rules of a fiction that falls back on conventions. You can see repeatedly how mother and daughter leaf through family albums together, but in the first of these scenes the depicted father himself appears as a transparent ghost in the image section. This is not scary: he is eating an apple and looking down at the others in a friendly manner. One can take the scene as the first indication that STE. ANNEit is more about juxtaposition: about images that can be memories, visions or views or several of them at the same time, but which are rarely realistic documents.

Photographs have a special status as artifacts in film. Renée has a crumpled old picture of a Ste. Anne, which she has acquired and where she would like to settle one day. The picture is an object of longing and at the same time a hand oracle that shows her the way into a self-determined future - although her project only seems possible via the detour of the fulfillment of a mythical prophecy. Athene, in turn, pins her mother's photo from the family album on the wall. When she touches it, this seems to trigger a chemical reaction that trembles the film image and, in the form of changing shades of color, apparently activates an inner intensity of the image, its affective potential.

Physical interweaving of image and world

According to the semiotic Charles S. Pierce, the photographic image (on film material) maintains an indexical connection to reality. It is a physical sign, a light print and at the same time the result of a medial transmission. With her work, Vermette consciously connects to this physical interweaving of image and world. She even goes beyond that when she ascribes a magic to the picture, an excess or residue of transcendence that must remain hidden from the naked eye. Horror films (just think of the horrific photo of the girl at the beginning of Nicholas Roeg's DON'T LOOK NOW) have repeatedly appropriated this mysterious charge of images. In STE. ANNEit is more about a spiritual-cosmic flicker, about the coexistence of different levels of time and being. Images seem most likely to be able to connect to the cyclical principle of the Métis culture. The time level of the film therefore remains deliberately unclear, past and present seem to overlap; At the same time, however, the camera has always been the medium for Vermette itself to relate to these traditions in the present. The fact that she herself can be seen in the role of Renée (and various family members appear) gives this artistic examination of her own history of origin even more urgency.

Recourse to the filmic carrier material is essential for Vermette's aesthetic approach. She shoots with a Bolex camera on 16mm and already with this practice refers to methods of experimental or avant-garde film; in interviews she mentions the tickle that results from the fact that you never know for sure what the finished image will look like in the end. In her short films, she made the materiality of the film an even more explicit topic, or rather linked the fiction itself to the volatility of the medium. In LE CHÂSSIS DE LOURDES (2016), who with STE. ANNE corresponds most strongly, she reflects on her flight from the family network and then works through the films and photographs that her father made with a camera that he passed on to her, as it were from the newly gained distance.

With the help of a flowing, yet high-frequency montage, she creates an undertow with the recordings from the house of her childhood, which, with the help of the medium of film, deconstructs that imaginary place that is commonly referred to as “home”. Memory is identified as a construction and the private environment, which one walks through again in pictures or rather scans through, is expanded into a collective space. By making the film material, the individual frames, the soundtrack and the perforation of the film strip visible, Vermette also turns the semantic units outwards. It rearranges and animates (right down to the processing of the individual cadre) the source material, not least through the sound,

LE CHÂSSIS DE LOURDES, as a (re) appropriation and extension of one's own family history, is nevertheless a differently polarized home movie than STE ANNE. Because only her feature film poses the question of how belonging to a traditional but already fragmented culture can be combined with the individualistic demands of a modern woman. Instead of following a progressive plot, Vermette creates passages which she then relates to one another using a method similar to sampling (she describes hip-hop artist and producer Madlib as one of her role models). Motifs are intoned, take a back seat and are taken up again later. One is the matriarchal structure of the Métis community, which is shown early on in the film in social togetherness, in which anecdotes about the past are exchanged. That sequence is particularly haunting in which the women in anachronistic costumes go from house to house as nuns with their faces wrapped in bandages. If you first believe yourself in a horror film, the scenario is later identified as a ritual that ends with the exuberant feast of the captured delicacies - a rebellious act that creates common ground among the women.

Metaphysics in moving images

Vermette embeds such passages in impressionistic landscape panoramas in which nature (and its spiritual forces) come to an independent present in the materiality of the film. The shots of barren autumn forests, wintery snowy landscapes and rivers, which have fragile textures and changing color intensities, do not just work as poetic inserts. Rather, they form the larger resonance space for the changes that are emerging in the family structure. The grandmother is repeatedly seen looking out into the night, at the moon and a stray dog, as if she saw a portent in them. Nature has a somatic quality that also manifests itself in the grain of the 16mm pictures or the veils of color that flicker around the pictures - an effect which is enhanced by the complex sound design. Once wrinkled hands plunge into a body of water, which seems to trigger a chain reaction on the sound level. When ice flowers on windows, ornate enamel and the swirl pattern on a body of water come together in a figurative dance, then it also tells of a cosmic roof over people and things.

This is also borne out by the highlighted scene in which the immanence of this community - one feels reminiscent of a film by Apichatpong Weerasethakul - emerges most clearly in the film: As in a daydream, Renée first climbs a hill in slow motion with tents on it. Then the horns of a bull glow in the dark, it snorts like a god of nature, while Renée tells of her premonition of a coming disaster. Did it create these pictures? She asks the being. Or is this just the sad result of someone else, i.e. representation itself?

That stays in STE. ANNE, of course, in the balance; But when you think about these questions you inevitably think of the director herself, the real originator of this metaphysics in moving images. Renée's path to independence is not only to be had at the price of breaking with the culture of origin. The idea of standing on her own two feet with Athena paradoxically brings her closer to her own roots. The decisive factor, however, is the film medium, which prepares the ground for the reconciliation of the opposing worlds: their real life and the spiritual space of family tradition. Only this gives form to magical thinking.

Dominik Kamalzadeh is the cultural editor of the Vienna daily Der Standard and member of the editorial board of the film magazine Kolik.Film . He lives in Vienna.

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indianarrative1 · 4 years

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At a time of social distancing forced by the coronavirus pandemic, it is becoming increasingly difficult to cope with loneliness. But then, loneliness was not an unknown phenomenon in the pre-Covid world even though the vast majority of the populace might refuse to accept this given the enormous opportunities – now on temporary hold – to let off steam.

Loneliness was quite an eye-opener for Vivek H. Murthy, a physician, researcher, public health expert, and entrepreneur of Indian origin, who from 2014 to 2017 served as the 19th Surgeon General of the United States in the rank of a Vice Admiral in the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps during the Barack Obama administration.

He expected that his focus as the “nation’s doctor” would encompass issues like obesity, tobacco-related diseases, mental health, and vaccine-preventable illness but, as he learned during an extensive tour of the US, “one recurring topic was different”.

It wasn’t a frontline complaint nor was it even identified directly as a health ailment.

“Loneliness ran like a dark thread through many of the more obvious issues that people brought to my attention, like addiction, violence, anxiety, and depression. The teachers and school administrators and many parents I encountered, for example, voiced a growing concern that our children were becoming isolated – even, or perhaps especially, those who spent much of their time in front of their digital devices and on social media. Loneliness also was magnifying the pain for families whose loved ones were struggling with addiction to opioids,” Murthy writes in “Together – Loneliness and What Happens When We Find Connection” (Profile Books/Hatchette).

In some cases, Murthy writes, loneliness was driving health problems. In others, it was a consequence of the illness and hardships that people were experiencing. It wasn’t always easy to tease out cause and effect, but clearly there was something about our disconnection from one another that was making people’s lives worse than they had to be.

As much as he learned about how prevalent loneliness is, he also learnt a great deal about the healing power of human connection.

“In these instances and so many others, I could see the vital role that social connections can play when individuals, families, and communities face difficult problems. While loneliness engenders despair and ever more isolation, togetherness raises optimism and creativity. When people feel they belong to one another, their lives are stronger, richer, and more joyful.

“And yet, the values that dominate modern culture instead elevate the narrative of the rugged individualist and the pursuit of self-determination. They tell us that we alone shape our destiny. Could these values be contributing to the undertow of loneliness I was witnessing,” Murthy asks.

In spite of his personal bouts of loneliness, however, he’d never considered this issue as a potential public health priority and it certainly wasn’t on the agenda he’d shared with the US Senate during his confirmation hearings.

“But suddenly, it loomed very largely indeed. The question was how to address it. Many of the people I was meeting assumed I had billions of dollars in discretionary spending and staff of tens of thousands. I often had to tell them this was off by a few orders of magnitude. Despite this, my new position gave me a bully pulpit from which to raise public awareness about loneliness, to convene conversations with key stakeholders, and to make the case for shifts in everything from research and policy to infrastructure and individual lifestyles.

“The more I studied the seesaw relationship between loneliness and togetherness, the more convinced I became of the great power of human connection. So many of the problems we face as a society – from addiction and violence to disengagement among workers and students to political polarization – are worsened by loneliness and disconnection. Building a more connected world holds the key to solving these and many more of the personal and societal problems confronting us today,” Murthy explains.

Noting that social connectedness matters to a doctor who wants to help patients get better but doesn’t know how to heal their loneliness – or the doctor’s own, Murthy writes, “My own desire to heed this call continued beyond my tenure as surgeon general. So did the persistent questions around loneliness that arose from the people and experts I’d met.”

What exactly has led to the fraying of relationships in communities and such high levels of loneliness? What other aspects of health and society are affected? How can we overcome the stigma of loneliness and accept that all of us are vulnerable? How can we create stronger, more enduring, and compassionate connections in our own lives and communities and a more unifying sense of common ground in our larger society? How do we shift the balance of our lives from being driven by fear of being fuelled by love, he asks and deals with these aspects in two sections in the book.

The first, Making Sense of Loneliness, discusses issues like Under Our Noses, The Evolution of Loneliness, Cultures of Connection, Why Now, and Unmasking Loneliness. The second addresses Building a More Connected Life through chapters dealing with Relating Inside Out, Circles of Connection, and A Family of Families.

“The great challenge facing us today is how to build a people-centered life and a people-centered world. So many of the front-page issues we face are made worse by — and in some cases originate from — disconnection. Many of these challenges are the manifestation of a deeper individual and collective loneliness that has brewed for too long in too many. In the face of such pain, few healing forces are as powerful as genuine, loving relationships.”

The bottom line, Murthy writes, creating a connected life begins with the decisions we make in our day-to-day lives.

“Do we choose to make time for people? Do we show up as our true selves? Do we seek out others with kindness, recognizing the power of service to bring us together; work that isn’t always easy as it requires courage – the courage to be vulnerable, to take a chance on others, to believe in ourselves?

“But, as we build connected lives, we make it possible to build a connected world. In such a world, we design our schools, workplaces, and technology to support human connection. We shape our laws to be forces for strengthening the community. We treat kindness and compassion as sacred values that are reflected in our culture and our politics,” Murthy concludes.

These are words of wisdom that come straight from the heart, and, as the world emerges from the lockdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the various stakeholders would do well to pay heed to them to begin a new chapter of human togetherness.

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