Anémic cinéma

Anemic Cinema (1926) is a short film consisting simply of spirals and text. This short is very avant-garde and leaves a lot to the audiences interpretation, but it was strangely hypnotic.

If you decide to watch this please watch it without sound as, in my opinion, the spirals create a rhythm of their own and I got a lot more out of my watch when the video was muted.

This film, even though incredibly simplistic, was interesting and felt quite progressive. It was definitely something I needed to delve into and do research after watching but I'm glad I did!

The use of text is intriguing, for example, the title itself is almost a palindrome which I found pretty cool. Also, the text spirals get slower as you read further in, i fell like there's meaning to this. The phrases written are almost child-like and read like a tongue twister, however some quite 'controversial' language is used which feels oxymoronic

For me, the spirals partly represent how film makes you FEEL, rather than the direct actions you watch on screen. The whole movie is a massive metaphor and definitely not for everyone, but it was certainly fun to look into!

I had previously watched 4 titles from Kino's 2-Disc AVANT-GARDE: EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA OF THE 1920s AND '30s; apart from this, I own multiple versions of a few of them. Anyway, having spent yesterday watching cartoons included in "Wonders In The Dark"'s 3000 All-Time Best Movies, I opted to follow it up with experimental shorts from the same poll, plus films by the same directors found in the afore-mentioned set. This one basically presents a progression of geometric forms shaped like a series of vaguely nonsensical quotes (in French) – one would think the constant revolving makes these hard to read but the eye actually adjusts to their alignment fairly quickly!

This is the only film directed by French artist Marcel Duchamp, whose name is associated with the Dada and Surrealism movements (who doesn't remember the urinal exhibited with the title "Fountain"?). As other similar avantgarde works made by Man Ray, Hans Richter or Fernand Léger, there's not a plot, only moving shapes and objects, in an attempt to deny the vision of art as contemplation and ecstasy. All we see here is only wheeling spirals and disks in which we can read sentences that apparently have nothing to do with the film. So it's impossible to comment this short the way you can comment any other non-avantgarde movies. It's Dada. It's strange. It's incomprehensible and also a bit monotonous, but we can forgive the genius Man Ray for this.

I am sort of a fan of the Dada artists, their kind of work, but after seeing 'Anémic Cinéma' I have come to the conclusion that me being a fan does not apply when it comes to the visual art forms. When it comes to visuals, paintings or films, I am able to like strange things before my eyes but not the Dada kind. I mean, I enjoy surrealism a lot including Buñuel's 'Un Chien Andalou' and paintings from Salvador Dalí.

In a way I enjoyed this piece of cinema from famous Dada artist Marcel Duschamp, but only because I knew what kind of man was behind it. What we get to see is a spiral design spinning before our eyes and a disc with French phrases on it, also spinning. Duschamp cuts between these two images although the kind of spiral design and the French text changes after every cut. Interesting? Yes, but that's about it.

Well, what can one say about this? Seven minutes of spirals and circles and nonsensical sentences or sentence-fragments in French, an experiment in revolution I suppose you could say. Duchamp's only known film as director, obviously a conjunction of formalist exercise and dadaist nonsense. I won't say it wore out its welcome, but I'm also glad it wasn't any longer. Watched on YouTube in an OK copy but most with a real interest in the avant-garde will want to catch it on Kino's excellent "Avant-Garde #1 with other experimental works from the silent and early sound periods including works from Man Ray, Joris Ivens, etc.

Not really "rateable" I think, though I'm doing it anyway...