Unearthly delight
The Atmosphere series began at Inspace last night with the screening of Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey (1994), the definitive documentary upon the life and times of both instrument and inventor, Professor Léon Theremin. Having patented the device in 1928, the mix of mechanical idolatry and entirely human subjectivity resulted in a fitting testimony to a noise as ethereal and transitory as our passage on this Earth. It also focused heavily on enthralling figure and key contributor Clara Rockmore, muse and theremin virtuosa who could tease a concert from the air with her red-clawed fingernails.
A life of champagne and concerts at Carnegie hall challenged societal conventions with a race-defying marriage to an exotic dancer, whereupon Theremin was kidnapped by the KGB, smuggled back to Russia, imprisoned and forced to spend 25 years pursuing espionage technology during the Cold War. The closing scenes of a frail and bent Theremin being reunited with a sparky, sharp-as-a-tack Rockmore felt almost painfully intimate. Oh, and afterwards we all had a go on the real thing, courtesy of FOUND. This is one seriously beautiful film. Or am I just a soft touch? Guilty, m’lud!
moves10
From Liverpool to Manchester and across the UK on screens, on site and online, moves celebrated its 6th successful year by reaching out to more audiences than ever. With nearly 500 submissions from over 40 countries from around the globe, this boutique festival’s impact is greater than ever, encouraging even more talent from across the region, UK and around the world to discover and exchange new methods of telling stories centered around movement on screen through films, installations, forums and live events.
Hot Circuit: Christina Corfield
This year’s theme Framing Motion explored how practitioners choose to frame movement through their choice of setting and context to define the boundaries for screen-based works. These could be real worlds or imaginary, abstract, impossible or augmented environments defined by a specific visual intent. In looking at methods of capturing a sense of pulse and energy, the curatorial outlook also addressed definitions of stillness: the pause-and-relinquish through which motion occurs.
When We Meet Again: Clara Garcia Fraile & Sam Pearson
For the first time a series of installed works studded the halls, rooms and courtyards of Liverpool’s creative hub the Bluecoat, from Charlotte Gould and Paul Sermon's tasty AR buffet Urban Picnic, to the one-on-no-one intimacy of video goggle installation When We Meet Again (Clara Fraile & Sam Pearson). Christine Corfield’s Hot Circuit told the 10-screen tale of a 2D teenage pregnancy while viewers automatically flinched and stepped back from the violent crack of a rope pulled with gunshot force through an urban assault course, curling and lashing like an angry electric bolt (Space Drawing No.5, Sai Hua Kuan).
The Colour of Pomegrantes (Sayat Nova): Sergei Parajanov, 1968
Nowhere was the festival theme more apparent that within the rare, feature-length screening of Armenian auteur Sergei Paradjanov’s The Colour of Pomegranates. A useful and highly accessible introduction by Daniel Bird, co-lecturer in Russian and Eastern European Film at Sheffield University equipped us for what lay ahead by encapsulating the life and career of this persecuted visionary, warning us not to expect a story, sense or understanding. Instead we were asked to allow the images to wash over us, like listening to music or the view from a train.
The Colour of Pomegrantes (Sayat Nova): Sergei Parajanov, 1968
The colour-drenched stream of static tableaux that followed quite legitimately justified the movie’s claim in Cahiers du cinéma’s top 10 films of all time. A biography of Armenian poet Sayat Nova’s life told in visual and poetic form, rather than pursuing a literal course, Orthodox iconography and Persian miniatures blinked into life. Newly dyed wool is slopped from steaming cauldrons, animals pour through a hive of catacombs, quasi-religious figures glow with an unearthly light, books lie scattered across impossible surfaces, pages turning in the breeze.
The Colour of Pomegrantes (Sayat Nova): Sergei Parajanov, 1968
At the heart of all burns the arresting image of Parajadov’s androgynous muse, Georgian actress Sofiko Chiaureli, playing no fewer than six roles, both male and female. More of a cultural spa experience than a standard visit to the cinema, watching The Colour of Pomegranates is a visual feast that we can pick at or gorge upon, a precursor to Derek Jarman’s rich visual style or Matthew Barney’s super-stylised filmic orgies (see The Cremaster Cycle).
Like a butterfly cupped in the palm of a hand, this painterly dream is the very definition of movement suspended, an intake of breath before release.
Kraak
A new, not-for-profit gallery and performance space has mushroomed into being above Hula's Tiki bar in Stevenson Square, Manchester. Although it took our finest Miss Marple-like detective skills to find the place as we followed a trail of chalked hieroglyphics, we eventually gained entry to Kraak and what remains at present a 'squat space' for their first Late Night Live Art event.
There were records to be smashed with a hammer, an amplified coat, twiddly knobs, cheap beer served through a hole in the kitchen door, strangely comfortable bust furniture and a lady eating passages offensive to women from Leviticus with a knife and fork.
Wave Your Hands In The Air
Thanks to friend and collaborator Sam Meech for riding to my rescue, a blonde knight upon his horse Isadora to deliver title animations for Unsilent Night tomorrow. I have blisters on my hand from carrying the 'portable' AnyCast vision mixing desk over from Manchester on the train (the approximate weight of a drowned man wearing flannel pyjamas) and just over 24 hours to remind myself how it works again.
Inspire Mark
After sitting on this like a constipated hen for the past few weeks, I can now go public that Unsilent Night is one of the projects granted the London 2012 Inspire Mark which recognises exceptional and innovative projects inspired by the 2012 Games.
In this case, the association is through our work in throwing open the cupboard upon a wealth of archive film, pulling off kid gloves in fusing old with new and encouraging investigation of early cinema by stepping outside (literally) of the multiplex experience.
The Face of a Crow
This video clip from local musicians a.P.A.t.T. makes me laugh very much. That and glow crimson with admiration for John's courage to dress and perform as he does here. It's not his usual daywear, I assure you. These folk are providing the score to two of our shorts at Unsilent Night at the Big Screen Liverpool and BBC Merseyside on Thursday 29th October... Aladin ou la lampe merveilleuse (1906) and George Méliès' Voyage à travers l'impossible (1904). I suspect the sequins and chest hair may stay out of sight, but we might strike lucky. It's going to be special.