26 Feb The Co(te)lette Film (2010)

Savage Worlds

I was just reminded of ‘Pina’ which I saw when new. And my partner has just acquired ‘Play’ (Alexander Ekman) so I am back thinking about film and dance. This follows a relatively recent period of brainstorming with a local dance company about how to do something with drones — a different set of cognitive challenges.

I like Mike Figgis. I like the experiments he does, and the clearly intellectual challenges he sets himself to. His films often fail. Usually do, but in interesting ways.

Here he has a dance that has been performed many times. It is larger than a dance, I would say. Rather performance art performed by three dancers, often dancing, always moving. There are no words, and only sometimes music.

The range of what we see is a bit astonishing in its rawness. There is an expression of emotion here. As a male viewer, I think I can only go halfway on the voyage, and that inability to even see I suppose is part of the pain we get.

That’s pretty much all I can say about the performance. Were I there physically, I would most assuredly be hurt in a useful way.

But this is about the film, and that’s an entirely different thing.

What Figgis does is change the eye in two ways. His apparent goal is to magnify the discomfort he thinks is the main point.

The original performance is to an ordinary audience, seated in front of a stage.

He changes the stage to be a square arena raised about 3 1/2 feet so that the surrounding, standing spectators are in the same space as the floor and the all the parts of the performers but their faces. These spectators are few, clearly chosen, dressed and directed. They are combatively passive, often arms crossed. One pregnant woman bored with hands on bare swollen belly. Mostly young adults.

Adding in the watchers means that the intended contract is changed. These women basically open their bodies and souls for each audience member individually for an internal encounter. Now we are shifted a layer away, where the intended affected are on screen for us to encounter.

Now my frustration is justified. Though there is no way I can reach the depth of emotion being danced through, I can feel superior to the unaffected watchers. Not sure I want that safety.

The other change is that Figgis makes the camera move into the action, closer throughout the performance so that at the end we get parts of bodies, including an extended shivering of an exhausted but captured being. I have to admit that there is a cost to making the camera be our eye — it assumes a contract I am forced into. And there is a threshold that is crossed by invading the space. The camera doesn’t participate in the dance. It moves, but with intimate curiosity, a final transgression.

I can understand why the filmmaker and choreographer argued so. What claim do we have in the collaboration he has forced us into?

Posted in 2025

Ted’s Evaluation — 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

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