The paradox of film is
sometimes the transition between the natural ability of the
photograph to record a piece of reality and the more artificial ones
of the image making apparatus called cinema and it´s ability to
modify.
Single, sometimes longer
shots of an urban landscape at the edge of Montreal: Building lots,
scaffolded Buildings. Deserted houses are for sale. Multi lane
highways appear like the veins of a big city. Except in moments were
some anonymous persons appear alone in front of the camera, this
region appears almost deserted. An endless flood of vehicles are
passing by. Occasionally rather atoms than traces of individuality
appear. An elderly man behind a telephone booth. As we can´t hear if
he really makes a call (he keeps the phone far away from eyes and
mouth) the scene looks like a pantomime. Another man is phoning
someone and the fragment from his conversation does not give any idea
about him or to whom he is talking. Tiny fragments of human lives
disappear almost completely after the next cut. They are literally
drowned by the omnipresent noise of the traffic. One of the dominant
colours is the red of the brick stones of some houses. Slightly
accented, they evoke in me a delusive warmth and coziness in this
down-and-out neighbourhood. Emblems and commercials often in form of
neon signs or poster of Coca Cola promise a shine which already has
left this quarter long time ago. In many shots, the environment is
reflected in shop windows, windows of restaurants or coffee shops
which are sparse frequented.
There are very few moments
or better traces of landscape which give a small idea about the
natural landscape which is almost totally suppressed by urban
landscape. Nature absorbed by civilization.
What has won me over in
this film is this strange subtle sliding between this very concrete
region of a very concrete city and often it´s turn into a nearly
dreamlike landscape. Especially in moments recorded at evenings or
nights which are just lighted by the artificial light of the city and
the neon light of shops, pubs or restaurants, the film appears like a
dream.
The moments when single
persons appear, children, old women, young women, old men and young
men, are fascinating in a strange kind. The camera remains staring at
their faces for a while. The people literally are doing nothing, than
staring back, but obviously they are aware of the presence of camera
and the filmmaker at the same time. And it is this staring back which
finally preserve their anonymity.
They remain strangers like
we encounter while strolling through foreign cities. The question the
film evokes in my mind is - where is this joint between a rather
prosaic film observation and the strange dreamlike engrossing aspect?
At the end we see again an
endless avalanche of vehicles and a French-Canadian song is talking
about the increasing speed of time when people get older.: “It´s
not only cars that go to 100. Time too rushes by.”
Actually these verses
remind me in this special feeling (probably only film can evoke) for
the fleeting of time – for example in a film by Ozu. But the many
drivers hidden in their cars again appear as impersonal, as anonymous
like their vehicles.
Interchange is
quite a proper film to open a film festival, because it deals at all
with the core of cinema, the seeing itself. Sometimes the visual
culture of cinema with it´s long and complex history has to go back
ti it´s initial origin just to remind us that film is “the art of
seeing”.
Rüdiger Tomczak
Screenings:
Sat, 17.2, 19.30 Cinestar
IMAX
Mon, 19.2 14.00, Delphi
Sat, 24.2, 22.00, Cine
Star 8
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