DÉFENESTRATION VERS L'AILLEURS Champs crépusculaires
by Dominik LANGE 1999 / Super 8mm / color / silent / 1S / 5' 00
The artist sets up his camera in front of a run-down shack. He will attempt to penetrate his subject with a series of agile and inquisitive camera movements. Although open to the four winds, the building is presented to us as an impenetrable castle: there are bars on the windows, locks and pulleys: a series of obstacles blocking our access. Lange launches his attack by panning horizontally, then vertically, across the walls; these are scarred with broken windows, which provide the principal motif for the film. This panning movement continues, with a series of variations based on the geometric patterns offered by the half-broken windows: a series of backlit triangles and rectangles, which at times suggest an anthropomorphic motif. The use of different shooting speeds and of in-camera double-exposure causes the film to fluctuate between documentation and abstraction. L'Ailleurs - Somewhere Else - is the interior which the film never penetrates. This impenetrability creates tension; it also defines the aesthetic of the auteur. As in Kafka's Castle, we never get inside.
