Independent screening collective, Static Vision, presented “a multi-day exploration of hopes, dreams and imagined worlds” across the 14th to 16th of May at Pink Flamingo Cinema, Marrickville.
The majority of films screened were Australian premiers and proved to be undiscovered gems that the programmers, Conor Bateman and Felix Hubble, had excavated to provide a well-rounded experience for viewers. Narrative, documentary, and experimental features, came from places like Brazil, China, Sweden and Japan. Highlights included Moara Passoni’s Ecstasy, an exploration into the insular preoccupations of a teenager’s experience with anorexia and Toshiaki Toyoda’s captivating film seething with anger, The Day of Destruction. The program itself traversed through time and space, exploring a liminal space in which the boundaries between reality and fiction became hazy. Focusing on such an essential element of film, the idea of “dream” was extrapolated to explore different extremes— the literal and metatextual, the individual and communal, the concrete and abstract, etc. Culminating into a grand celebration of all things cinema, human and immaterial.
The films within the program spoke in dialogue with one another, particularly the selection of short films which were finely selected to complement and juxtapose respective features.
Not only was the program carefully curated, the Mothership Studios space itself was transformed into a dreamscape. Eleanor Smith’s ethereal lighting installation of hanging luminescent clouds adorned a large portion of the ceiling, giving the space an ever changing glow. An experimental game space was curated by Serenade to sprawl across the warehouse like portals into different worlds.
Static Vision created a truly hyperreal and immersive experience that enveloped audiences into a paradoxically calamitous yet spiritual experience with very little detail.
INSIDE THE DIAMOND
Viktor Johansson’s film interweaves the lives and dreams of several people who have been brought together by a now defunct diamond processing plant in a Swedish town. As a result of the closing of the factory, the individuals’ concerns and daydreams all intersect while they sleep, make sense of ghosts, and contemplate the imminent future.
Reality and fiction are blurred to create a portrayal of refugees’ and youths’ radical resistance the foreboding threat posed by the post-industrial age, simply by just existing. The film facilitates the one thing the locals can take charge and autonomy over, their own voices, but even then, their stories are wracked with uncertainty.
ECSTASY
Moara Passoni’s Ecstasy offers a sensitive and well-considered view of the insular preoccupations of a teenager’s anorexia as she comes to terms with growing up.
The semi-autobiographical story is informed by Passoni’s nonfiction diary entries, where her internal experience is conveyed by voiceovers of varying ages. All drenched with dread and apathy, the narration expresses her illness as an act of rebellion rather than conformity, yet exposes its debilitating delirium. The images and soundscape travel between sterility, emptiness, and intensity—creating a liminal space that continually edges between the thresholds of life and death.
A psychosocial link is explored between the turmoil of 90’s Brazil and the protagonist’s search for extreme autonomy as she draws correlations with her own body and the brutalist modern landscape.
The searingly accurate portrayal of eating disorders encourages an empathetic view towards the protagonist’s paradoxically transcendental yet self-destructive experiences.
SLOW MACHINE
Slow Machine unfolds the story of a young New York City actress who comes to terms with how her rendezvous with a NYPD intelligence agent cascades into chaos. The narrative is characterised by unsettlement and uncertainty— where reality and performance intersect. Hyperreal sequences traverse beyond linear time, keeping the viewer on their toes as the disorientating experience of the protagonist’s paranoia infects the film. The directors describe it as “a cross between dream and memory film”. The film is grounded by strong monologues, many of which are delivered by Stephanie Hayes enthralling performance.
CRESTONE
Marnie Ellen Hertzler travels to Crestone, Colorado to film a group of her high school friends who have set up a commune “to grow weed and make music for the Internet”. Documenting a mix of the physical world and the digital landscape of Instagram and Soundcloud, the film mindlessly wanders and meanders through the quotidian routines of their lives. It culminates into a dreamy haze where the world melts into itself and reality is dismissed, where existentialism ebbs and flows, where the director comes to question the trajectory of the project and whether she is welcome in this limbo. “This movie is a love letter, this movie is about the end of the world,” the director explains in her endearing voiceover.
THE DAY OF DESTRUCTION
Originally planned for a premier at the Tokyo Olympics, The Day of Destruction remains a timely piece of contemporary Japanese cinema. Toyoada’s film seethes with anger and gore, whilst its characters attempt to navigate a psychosocial epidemic that thrives off self-interest. The harsh soundtrack and use of body horror are reminiscent of Lynch’s portrayal of post-indusrial society in Eraserhead, where chaos and delirium also manifest in the diurnal rhythms of its protagonists. Absolutely captivating and well-paced, with potent relevancy.
Bonnie Huang