By Erin Fox
Calgary; April 2010

Art as an industry is ever-changing. As technology continues to mature and evolve, so too do the mediums and artists involved in creative expression. As new mediums become available, artists continue to take advantage of the growing freedom in expression, and adapt their visions to suit not only the changing industry, but also the audience. Film, as a modern artistic aesthetic and comparatively new medium, provides an innovative venue for artistic expression. The dynamic aspects of motion pictures offer a new perspective to the viewing audience, a new venue for artistic culture, and have themselves evolved in a relatively short
period of time. When concerned with the assorted properties of film as an art form (in its literal, visual, poetic, and linguistic sense) filmmaker Maya Deren believes that artists “...should not seek security in a tidy mastery over the simplifications of deliberate poverty; he should, instead, have the creative courage to face the danger of being overwhelmed by fecundity in the effort to resolve it into simplicity and economy” (Deren 189). Like visual art exhibitions and museums,
theatrical performances, and live music venues, experimental film festivals encourage the varied visions and efforts of such artistic talents. It is both the pleasure and the responsibility of the contemporary artistic generation to contribute to the trajectory of experimental film, and acknowledge its origins. The $100 Film Festival is one such event whose intention is to expose, support, and celebrate the creative spirits behind these works of art. Having never attended one of this organization’s screenings before I was impressed with the diversity of talent among the participants, and the effect of one project in particular by David Domingo.

Pelicula Sudorosa (David Domingo) was part of the effectively organized Friday night screening on March 5th. The program featured films of very different styles, beginning with a “Film/ Music explosion” titled Psychic Detective. The live song was performed by The Psychic Alliance, and the accompanying film was created by Duncan Kenworthy. The result was an energy-rich, audio/visual experience - an excellent introduction to what would be a very entertaining evening. The rest of the program was not lacking in excitement either. The audience was treated to an array of films including animations like Loving the Bomb (Alison Davis), and Sexy Noir (Ben Popp/ Kenny Reed); comedies such as The Strange Case of Victor Von Dictor (John Woods), and Beez In The Hood (Helder Carvajal); visual delights such as A L’Est Des Vents (Emilie Serri), and The Sounding Lines are Obsolete (John Price); and a curious structural film, Back & Forth (Clint Enns). I felt as though the program’s diverse spirit of influence and style was epitomized in Pelicula Sudorosa (David Domingo) - a visual feast whichcaptured the attention of the audience, entertained them, and paid homage to many of experimental film’s greatest contributors.

Domingo’s film begins with the iconic Columbia Pictures logo (the lady draped in fabric, holding a torch in the clouds) and an epic musical score. This famous image recalls the pop cultural context of Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising, and Bruce Conner’s Cosmic Ray (Sitney 108-09). Where Anger and Conner uses popular rock music, iconography, cartoons, advertisements and comics to allude to the context of film as a popular medium, Domingo uses the Columbia Logo, recognizable film scores, and sporadic frames of actor Charlton Heston. This found footage contributes to the debate of film as an artistic medium, versus film as a cultural device. In The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer write that “Films and radio no longer need to present themselves as art. The truth that they are nothing but business is used as an ideology to legitimize the trash they intentionally produce” (Adorno, and Horkheimer 42). By including references to this “trash”, Anger and Domingo both acknowledge the spectrum of influence film holds as a cultural medium. This is an effective use of iconic cultural references, and assures a relationship with the audience based on familiarity and irony. What we see beyond the Columbia logo is not a recognizable Hollywood narrative based on cause and effect (which the viewer might come to expect after such an image), but an inventive and colorful adventure into abstract modes of imagery and emotional experience.

Pelicula Sudorosa features images scratched and painted onto the film emulsion (on a black background) which result in vibrant clusters of color, shaking and morphing on the screen. These moments are reminiscent of Stan Brakhage and his film Anticipation of the Night. Brakhage has a very distinct concept of vision, which Sitney says includes “...the essential movements and dilations involved in the primary mode of seeing.... what the mind’s eye sees in visual memory and in dreams.... and the perpetual play of shapes and colors on the closed eyelid and occasionally the eye surface...” (Sitney 168). These moments of abstract imagery in Domingo’s film allude to the last-mentioned visual concept of Brakhage’s, known as “closed-eye vision” (Sitney, 168). Our ability as humans to be entertained by visual stimulus can be taken advantage of by the aforementioned “trash”, but should not be taken for granted in its purest form. The scattered, dynamic bursts of imagery conceptualized by Brakhage and utilized by Domingo provide the viewer with a purely visual experience, and remind the viewer of film’s ability as an artistic medium to transcend cultural iconography by articulating simpler, more profound human functions.

These are not the only images in Pelicula Sudorosa that allude to visual lyricism on an abstract level. Domingo features everyday objects in motion to emphasize the graphic qualities of such objects, resulting in an abstract, rhythmic effect on the audience. Specifically vivid are the images of a sausage, and of a rocking horse which occur periodically through the film; sometimes stationary, sometimes moving, often crossing the screen, and in front of varying colors of backgrounds. These objects and their graphic qualities recall the pure cinema form of Fernand Leger’s Ballet Mechanique which Sitney calls a “...tour de force of rhythmic and spatial strategies” (Sitney 170), and “an image of a gigantic social supermachine” (Sitney 22). However, where Leger’s intent was to illustrate the mechanical qualities of these graphic rhythms, Domingo appears to more intent on creating an aesthetic juxtaposition and melody out of such visually charged objects. Regardless, the lyric and motional relationships between these objects elicit a wonder regarding the “bigger picture” of the film. I found myself at these
moments trying to combine Domingo’s strategies and discover an cohesion within them. Coherence, however, was not the intent of Pelicula Sudorosa - instead it was the journey of visual discovery that the film guided the viewer along.

As I mentioned earlier, the success of friday night’s program fell on it’s ability to celebrate the diversity of artistic vision, and illustrate the influence of the experimental film trajectory as an entire cultural timeline. Pelicula Sudorosa embodied these intentions successfully through a varied collection of images, shapes, objects, and music. The organization of this film appeared to reflect the composition of the program, and its intent to emphasize the significance of visual diversity as it applies to film as an artistic medium. Domingo’s film works hard to reach its audience, and rewards them through rhythm, beauty, eloquence, and a colorful energy unmatched in its entirety by the other participants. Even in its black-and-white moments, Domingo’s film is emotionally vibrant - particularly the moment in which the camera stares at a persistent cat attempting to escape a window. The audience watched in suspense as the music swelled and the cat attempted to squeeze its body out of the window, and then erupted in applause when the feline hero succeeded - a moment emphasizing the expressive quality of altered “home movies” such as Jonas Mekus’ Notes On the Circus. Film offers unlimited potential to those who see in it an artistic opportunity. The pamphlet for the $100 Film Festival says that it “offers something for everyone”. Pelicula Sudorosa itself embodies this objective through its own artistic variety and nostalgic recollection of experimental film’s pioneers, and contributed an invaluable experience to the screening. If any tweaking of the program is in order, I would have placed it last to punctuate a successful evening, and artistic journey.