The Zone of Total Eclipse
The Finnish artist Mika Taanila manipulates found scientific footage - a registration of an eclipse that took place in 1945 in northern Finland - that he shows in both positive and negative.
Mika Taanila
Director
Also Directed by Mika Taanila
Woody observation case in Helsinki through early 1950s newsreel footage. Four locations in shots, accompanied by four tape loops and four locked-groove vinyls.
In a bold and original approach to memory, this Lettrist-inspired film maps an anxiety-ridden plane journey from Tokyo to Helsinki without the aid of photographic images. A variety of interventions on the film strip are combined with an atmospheric sound design to create a subjective story of displacement and containment. In an age when experience is increasingly mediated through digital technologies, Taanila seeks out an alternative language in the sensuous surfaces of the celluloid material.
Early 1950s newsreel laboratory marker films used for indicating effects like wipes, dissolves and fade-outs in the work print, now freed from their utilitarian practice into a fantasy realm.
The film is a collection of one-minute short films created by 60 filmmakers from around the world on the theme of the death of cinema.
A compilation from the independent record label Bad Vugum founded in 1987, originally based in Oulu, Finland. Bad Vugum consists of indie rock, noise rock, experimental rock, electronica, hardcore punk, and thrash metal. The label's name comes from an epithet invented by Captain Beefheart, heard uttered during his song "Sue Egypt". Many releases were championed by the BBC radio DJ John Peel.
Suddenly there is an enormous amount of time. At first everything is possible. Anything might happen. Gradually the possible becomes impossible.
The Man Who Fell to Earth (Roeg, 1976) evacuated and flipped. In abandoned landscapes, animals, furniture and empty vehicles are left awaiting for disaster. The upside-down world is accompanied by sounds from the original film and “Man Who Sold The World” popping up backwards. A “film without film” and my Bowie tribute – without Bowie. (M.T.) ”We must have died alone, a long long time ago.” (D.B.)
