If you recall my What's In the Box Review for L'Erotisme, a release from the Canadian independent studio Cinema Abattoir. Well, here is their second release of short films, INCARNATION. I was given a review copy here and I had a great time with this collection. Below is a short synopsis and review for each film in order of appearance on the DVD, and then follows is a summation of the DVD itself. The films thematic arch is spirituality, but more in the realm of either occultism or mysticism. Mostly around the subjects of union of the mind/body or male/female. It is also about transcendence of the physical form. So many of the films will deal with these aspects in some form or fashion. The idea of Incarnation is to bring about, produce, to manifest, to give birth to and similar associations thereof. 

 

 

LES SOUFRANCES D’UN OEUF MEURTRI - Roland Lethem

A short film broken into 4 stages:

1) étoiles – A man eats a starfish in bed, and then brushes his teeth. 2) corps – two men sitting on the floor opposite each other appears to be having a type of visceral conversation. Both men are the same person and cannot seem to touch one another physically as their images overlap and become transparent at that time. 3) hymen – A narration of a woman speaking in French, while we view brilliant green grass. In the grass is a seemgly dead woman in a similar tinted green color. A cross surrounded by maggors shits at her crotch. 4) oeuf – A woman kisses a man and then an egg comes out of his mouth. In a field is a table and chair with a plate of a sunny-side up egg. A baby is crying. A naked man is sitting there with blood coming from his right eye, which drops onto the egg. A woman now sits across from him, also naked. The woman changes form about three times. Now blood is coming out of both eyes. The man takes a spoon and eats the yolk in its entirety. The woman then puts a whole egg on the table. The man takes the egg and crushes it with his hands. Some hard glances at each other, then the man is on the grass again and another egg comes out of his mouth.

Director Roland Lethem’s film is not visually stunning, but it is certainly heavy on the symbolism. While one might be able to divine the meanings of these symbols, it still does not offer the audience enough of a film experience. One might be able to capture the same ideas in a book of drawings and some text.

The film in my opinion is about some regeneration of either the human body or spirit or soul (whichever word you choose). He is offering an approach through stages, which, in an English translation is 1) Stars, 2) Body, 3) Hymen or Veil, and 4) Egg. The fact that starfish can grow their entire body from any severed point, that is, split one into two and you have two starfish. The section on the body suggests some ethereal plane or reconnecting, perhaps, an astral or ethereal form of the body until it is no longer two and unifies itself with itself. The third section I feel at a disadvantage because I do not understand French or speak it. Subtitles would be very welcome, but that is not at the fault of the director, nor is it a criticism on the film, but it would give me an indication of this section as it seemed the vaguest. If I were to guess, it seems to suggest a bodily death, perhaps of a psychological one. Lastly, the egg section is strange in its editing and symbolism. The man here gives birth to the egg, which might suppose we are not seeing a literal type of birth, but rather of an idea or a change of some form or fashion. I am not really sure with this section, other than to say that whatever happened, it seemed to start over, suggesting, again, regeneration.

This film was originally released in 1967. Given the time elapsed since its original release, I am not sure how well it appreciated as I felt mostly closed off from the idea it was trying to convey, as if I was watching images that, unto themselves made sense, but as a whole I felt struggling to come up with something. 

CATHARSIS - Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani

Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani’s film is hard to describe, even in an objective manner. It is almost composed entirely of stills that move like a stop-motion animation, with sound effects and industrial ambiant sound overlapped. The colors are saturated in red and green highlights. The general gist of what goes on are a series of deaths, one by means of a knife, another by a drill, in which the guy gets put into a meat grinder. The editing is stoccato-like in style making for an edgy and sharply dissonant viewing.

I am not inclined to this style of filmmaking, however, it does have its interesting moments. To me, the images are too far apart from one to another which means I have to put more information than the film offers. If we understand the premise of the “persistance of vision”, we know that we interpret film to a certain degree as we will in the missing images from frame to frame. Here is a case where many seconds of film needs to be filled in to make an idea out of the action that is taking place, leading to either vagueness or confusion. The looping end credit music is actually quite catchy. Originally released in 2000.

PANDROGENY MANIFESTO - Aldo Lee and Dionysos Andronis

I must admit, when I first viewed this film, I was uncertain about what I was watching, who these people were and why I cared what they had to say. At a second viewing with my friends, they were immediately excited to see this person on the screen because they knew who they were. So, it was reassuring because I had them explain what they were about which gave me some background and appeciation of what this film’s purpose was.

Pandrogeny, as the word suggests, is a unified male and female body. Or, it may be said, male, female and anything else, as the word “pan” means “all”. They appear to be two women, however, I believe they do not identify with a specific gender. Well, let me introduce these two people. They are Genesis P-Orridge and his wife Lady Jayne Breyer. Genesis was former singer/musician of the band Throbbing Gristle and was heavily influenced by the writings of both William S. Burroughs and Brian Gyson whom the latter became a teacher of magick to Orridge.

The film is listening to the two explain the philosophy of pandrogeny from a manifesto (presumably they wrote) in which it expounds that the aim of the human life is to modify the body to the point of having no sexual physical identity, but rather of all so that one no longer feels like a man or woman. While I have no personal inclination to modify myself to the degree of no longer being a man, I do find the philosophy fascinating and, at least on a psychologicl/mystical level, does have some ring of truth to it. But that’s where it ends for me.

The film is set up so we move back and forth between Genesis and Lady Jane as they are sitting with one in the foreground looking forward, while the other is facing us reading their manifesto. They are both wearing the same black and white striped shirt suggesting their indicriminate bodies that one might not be able to tell each other apart.

In sum, I had more appreciation due to understanding of the people’s background than I might have had without any previous knowledge. Perhaps it’s my own defense turned into skepticism and criticism of bodily manipulations than my ability to listen and make a reasonable understanding out of what the people have to say despite appearances. But, by and large, it’s a sort of “talking heads” documentary with some style that makes up for the static camera work. The music is by Throbbing Gristle. Lady Jayne has since died in 2007.

PANTELIA: MEDITATIONS ON THE NUMBER 10 - Mark Pellerano

Filmed in 2007, the film begins with the title card as an old Art Nouvou style text. Some tinted scenes of splashing water and fish. Then a voice breaks out in the form of a woman speaking in a (strangely sexy, yet robotic) British monotone voice. It seems to start as if we already know what to expect, as if she was in mid-sentence. “A numerical system is a decimal system…”, she begins, and from there we are taken into the occult world of the symbolism of the number 10.

This was, perhaps, my favorite of the disc. I am partial to the content in this case more than the film aesthetics that go with it, so forgive me if I seem to indulge in the occult lore as part of my liking for it, but anyone that mentions W. Wynn Westcott has my immediate attention. With that said, the film is somewhat documentary in presentation, however, it also has a quality to it that might harken back to early 17^th century style manuscripts. The film does not ask if you know about occultism, symbolism of numbers or suggest you need a prerequisite for understanding the film. There is a lot of information given in a short period of time, so from my perspective, one viewing is not sufficient.

It is essentially a series of stills of various ancient artworks from Kabbalistic, alchemical, magickal, and biological resources that discuss or reference the idea of the number 10 as a means of describing the material world in spiritual terms. Director Micki Pellerano certainly kows his material and is able to put down his ideas simply and succinctly supported by images of both past and present. The ideas start simply and build logically from one state to the next without confusing or muddling the idea, which can be very easy to do when trying to sort various occult meanings from one system to the next. Pellerano handles it all very nicely and seamlessly by putting together a coherent whole that is visually pleasing, and fascinating to listen to. Most films on occultism, whether horror, cult or documentary usually end up being exploitation devices, but here we are treated to the historical and spiritual side that is more accurate, and to me, much more interesting. To sum it up perfectly, the film is exactly 10 minutes in length. I look forward to his other works.

THEOCORDIS - Serge de Cotret

A short film that is high on imagery, style, and symbolism requests a lot on the viewer. One way we know that something is symbolic is because the object transcends itself as a prop and becomes meaningful in its context. Especially when there are no people to speak of that interact with these objects (save for a naked woman who does not directly interact with the said objects).

Theocordis is one such example of this kind of film. Director Serge de Cortet has made a startling, seemingly anti-Christian film where we see some sort of altar setting with a heart, the Christ, a crown, and some dildos and other phallic shapes here and there. The high grain makes some of the areas ambiguous to make certitude; however, there is enough information to associate meanings at what the director might be after.

It is a montage, but not in the Eisensteinian sense where juxtoposition occurs, but rather the effect and style of the filming along with the distorted, amplified white noise layered with calm, almost church-style music. I think it all works together, but it takes patience from the audience to get to the images. Filmed in Quebec in 2007.

PINHOLE FLAMES - Amy Schwartz

A visually powerful and entrancing 3-minute film from director Amy Schwartz. There is no specific image to rest your eyes on, however, the quick movements of the shutter with the film passing through. The music starts off slow and then slowly rises to a considerable pattern of almost transcendent sounds that match perfectly to the rhythm of the film. The brilliant blue background with white (pinholes?) star like shapes is a completely visceral experience. My feelings are that this was not an intellectual exercise nor has symbolic value, but rather an experiential one that one participates with the body. Schwartz keeps the pace just right by increasing the intensity just enough and the music helps keep the film in balance. The films length keeps it from becoming monotonous or annoying, but at just the right length. Films in Quebec in 2007.

BURN - Reynold Reynolds and Patrick Jolley

This was one of the most surreal short on the disc. The film opens with a refrigerator with the door open with the contents in the fridge on fire. This film, directed by Reynold Reynolds and Patrick Jolley must have taken a lot of precautions putting this together and has pulled it off effectively. I am not sure of the narrative, but we see people living in the house doing mundane things while the rest of the house is ablaze. I don’t mean a little fire, but I do mean like fires everywhere! We see a man sitting down and reading the paper while the arm of his chair is on fire. He tries to douse it out with his paper, sometimes successful, sometimes he needs to swat it a bunch of times. It comes off sometimes comical because the fire is just treated a nuisance, rather than anything to panic over, and that was intentional and it was pulled off perfectly.

Soon, however, three cloaked figures come through the door covered in a sheet. Who they are and where they come from are unknown, and what their intentions are is unclear. Meanwhile, however, the fridge continues to burn and melt as we see food dripping to the bottom making a boiling heap.

The cloaked figures are all crawling around on the ground, which, then we come to a room that is yet tainted by the fire. A woman sleeping in bed unaware of a man with a canister of gas poors it over her and lights her on fire. She sleeps through it all.

The film is slowed down and really admires the fire that burns everywhere. There is a certain fascination about watching a fire and how it can consume so much in so little time when it is uncontrolled. That is the appearance we are given here. I really liked the quality of the film despite not really discovering any message or idea it wants to impart. I am not sure if the relationship and the fire had any connection. Was it a fiery, passionate relationship? Were these intruders the cause of the fire? I don’t know and my guesses are not confident enough to make any conclusions. But what I liked about it was that I was interested in what was happening without making up stuff about what it could be about. Sometimes being in the world, rather than just watching it, without explanation, can be fun all by itself.

WESTERN SUNBURN - Karl Lemieux

Karl Lemieux had a very short film in the compilation L’Erotisme (KI) of an old adult film clip. This time around he takes a clip from an old Western. I am not sure what the film is, or if it’s a film in the Hollywood sense of the word, but it appears to be a scene of some cowboys in the desert riding horses rustling up some ox. This has minimal significance of what we see. Yet, what is is more significant about this work is that we are watching a film pass through a projector. So it’s like watching a film that is watching a film. And so, from time to time, the film stops in the projector and starts to get hot. We see the film start to melt and then burn.

It might seem simple, but when it’s slowed down to examine it in slow motion, it makes for a beautiful site. I became completely involved in the whole experience of seeing this very grainy film and to watch the film melt and burn. Each time was a unique experience and makes some wonderful patterns of strong yellow, orange and red hues that contrast sharply with the black and white photography of the Western. 

This is all set to a piece of melancholy Western style music that is more haunting than celebrating of the Wild West that transcends the idea of watching film for content. Here, it is as if we are watching a piece of art in action, changing, moving, and then surprised by the designs that Nature makes, even in its destructive ends. It is as if to say destruction has its own beauty. While Lemieux’s work on L’Erotisme had little impression on me, this work clearly shows his talents as an artist. This is a beautiful film that I am really excited about this film. Filmed in Quebec in 2007.

CONVULSION EXPULSION - Usama Alshaibi

Well, this was not really my cup of tea. Truly bizarre from the moment it began. I felt as if I was watching a mental ward where everything is white and the only patient is this convulsing and seizing china doll. This woman starts to menstruate (or least bleed between her legs) and then starts to bleed out of her mouth. Ok, I will not spoil the ending for you here.

The soundtrack is pretty intense and makes for an overstimulated environment with its electrical and industrial sounds. Seemingly, the disruptive sound contrasts the clean whiteness of the image. I suppose this is intentional on director Usama Alsaibi’s part, however, it still creates an unsettling atmosphere. The disc ultimately ends here, while this short film will leave an impression on you, I am not sure this is the note I want to end the disc on. Filmed in 2004.

Overall I really enjoyed this collection of films. Despite my criticism for some of the specific titles, I think as a collection, it works as a whole unit and has more cohesion in theme than the previous collection. With some of the stronger films like Western Suburn and Pantelia, I enjoy giving this DVD more viewings and inclined to watch some of the ones I was less inspired by to see if there was something I missed the first time around.

The DVD actually closes with "Exercise Eleven - Exercice en Erotisme', which is serparated by a long pause on the disc that you cannot forward to a new track, but must either fast forward or be patient to get to. But the word "exercise" must be taken to heart on this last piece because it seems to be just that. No realy direction or idea that I can muster from this as there are too many variable images to make a real cohesive idea here. Which is unfortunate as I was hoping for a secret gem in the final moments. But, on the good side, while this last piece was not the secret gem, once this ends, you are treated to a graphic still at the root of the DVD of the Ororbus, the continually regenerating and devouring snake. Its cooler than it sounds. There is no menus in this collection, no selection of films. Put it in and it plays.

The DVD itself comes packaged in brown paper, wrapped with twine, each stamped with an uncertain word in, what seems like red melted wax or thick paint. Each package is put together by hand. Once you get to the DVD case, its an anonymous cover with no name or labels anywhere. When you open it, you see the DVD is white with splatter red paint across it. Each DVD is unique in its splatter pattern as they are done by hand. One the left is an insert that opens up like a poster which has the track listings and DVD credits. There is a lengthy write-up, which is all in French, so if you know how to read it, you are at an advantage. 

Producer/director/artist Pierre Luc-Vaillancourt has put together an excellent collection that is highly recommended to the cinematically open minded. Its of a cinema that you will not find at your local theater, nor will your co-workers discuss these at the water cooler. It is purely personal cinema for both the artists and the audience, almost in the same way one goes to an art gallery. It is between you and the image.

This DVD is a Limited Edition of only 1000 copies. These are now available at our RareOOPDVD Store, or you can go directly to the Cinema Abattoir website.

We also have copies of the previous release, L'Erotisme in our store for purchase. These are limited to only 500 copies. 

  I also want to thank Pierre Luc-Vallaincourt for his continued support and communication. His dedication and perseverance allows us to see these very rare short films to a larger audience.