The Image

One of the first screen performances by David Bowie. This black and white short art film has David Bowie as an image that comes to life to torment his artist. No matter what the artist does to get rid of his image, the image keeps coming back. An interesting short film that is hard to find. But a must for hard-core Bowie fans.

Just saw this little 13 minutes thing, well, better late than never, huh? It's 37 years old, but so far I only heard rumours and word of mouth about it, but never managed to find it anywhere else..

The plot is, an artist is making a picture and suddenly the picture (David Bowie at around the age of 20) comes to life and the artist stabs it repeatedly with a knife, but the picture refuse to die.

There can be put a lot of different understandings behind this piece of work, but personally it reminded me of the Andalusian Dog, don't ask why cause I cannot tell, it doesn't contain the same vivid images and insane cinematography, but there is something I cannot quite put my finger on, and this is why I won't rate this film - I don't know if I like it or hate it, but it definitely stirred something inside me.

This is a very good little short which I watched this earlier this evening (it was on a Bowie compilation DVD and my mate wanted me to tell him about 'the other actor' in it) and it really creeped me out. The plot is simple, the image being painted by an artist comes to life to terrify the life out of him (and us). The imagery is stark and disturbing, the sound effects oppressive (especially the constant driving rain) and the performances first rate. If you can catch this it is definitely worth watching. Oh yes, 'the other actor' was in the 3rd 'Indiana Jones' movie among many others. Bowie is visually impressive and thank goodness he does not open his mouth and ruin the effect. Recommended.