By: Cornelia Laakso
The six films in “Chronicles,” the 43rd annual Portland International Film Festival’s second block of shorts, are linked in one common trait; as the title suggests, they can each be described as documenting an occurrence which might otherwise recede into historical or cultural obscurity. The first film in the series, Remembrance (Oregon, 2015) comes from director Sabina Haque and studies the human impact of U.S. drone warfare. Here drone deaths are signaled by tally marks documented in stop motion. Significantly, duration emerges as the key element in this short film; the repetition of a singular action—marking deaths with chalk marks on the walls and floor of a room—instills a sense of magnitude at the sheer volume of it all. As the markings are washed away, they mix with the red powder which before formed the shape of a military drone on the floor; what’s left is a symbolic erasure of lives and deaths in a wash of blood-red. In a Q&A following the film, Haque noted that she makes films for two audiences; Pakistan and the West. The film was inspired by a quote she read from a thirteen-year-old Pakistani boy who now dreads blue skies for the threat they bring of airborne attack. The film provides an effective visual metaphor for both the immensity of human lives lost to U.S. military warfare and the erasure such violence in the West.
Matt McCormick’s The Deepest Hole (Washington, 2020) delves into a lesser-known cold war era race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, whereby both countries sought to drill as deep as possible into the earth’s crust. The Soviet Union’s “Kola Superdeep Borehole” project was successful, effectively digging the deepest hole in the world. The project took an outlandish turn when audio recorded from within the hole was compared to the sounds of tortured souls in hell; what follows, in McCormick’s film, is a study of global reactions to the notion that the hole had quite literally opened the gates to hell. The film is firmly rooted in reality with its use of archival footage, but collage-style layered visual elements—such as squiggly lines resembling geological layers or sound waves—overlap with archival footage to form a synthesis of real and surreal, a characterization appropriate to the film’s subject itself. At one point in the film the entire screen is consumed with a hypnotic spiral, a not-so-subtle suggestion of humanity’s transfixion with otherworldly answers to worldly questions.
Prabda Yoon’s Transmissions of Unwanted Pasts (Thailand, 2019) follows a satellite engineer who makes a groundbreaking discovery; transmissions received by a satellite she’s tracking might be originating from different decades in the past. Her efforts to expose this discovery—and the vast possibilities it presumes—are thwarted by government figures. The film conveys a sense of unease characteristic of the present moment; here, the powers that be are oppressive, untrustworthy, and operating from an indiscernible position which seems to devalue truth. The film is decidedly on-the-nose in its representation of a government cover-up and silencing of citizens; in a montage of close-up shots, the soldiers, whose role is to muzzle the satellite engineer, cover her eyes and ears, and press her fingers against keyboard keys. A long shot and creeping zoom-out of the woman breaking down in a car after the ordeal underscores a sense of isolation under oppressive forces; against a black backdrop, the car seems to float in a void of ominous silence, the woman inside receding into space. As the title suggest, Yoon’s film is an atmospheric case study which suggests that to reject the past is to also reject the clarity of hindsight which lends itself to a better way forward.
Radu Jude’s The Marshal’s Two Executions (Romania, 2018) depicts two representations of the execution of General Ion Antonescu, authoritarian leader of Romania during World War II. The first version is the silent, black and white footage of the actual execution recorded in 1946, and the second is from a 1994 biographical film directed by Sergiu Nicolaescu. The two versions of the execution are cut back and forth between scenes, underscoring the notion of reality versus reproduction. The chasm between real and representation comes into full focus when the executions take place; static and silent in its black and white time capsule, the original footage is nonetheless striking in affect. Rather than breathing life into the original footage with its use of color and sound, the biographical film is propped up by the intercut sense of weight contributed by footage of the real occurrence.
In We Only Answer Our Land Line (Oregon, 2019), co-directors Woodrow Hunt and Olivia Camfield align the experience of the extraterrestrial alien on earth with the indigenous experience. There is a sense of digital media specificity to the film; at times the screen mimics a computer desktop, digital distortion mixes with static imagery, and collage-style photo cutouts are transposed onto separate imagery. The film does not follow a discernible narrative arc; it is experimental and non-linear, and although—without context—I found it inaccessible in terms of story or message, it comes across as decidedly personal with its use of what appear to be fragments of old family photos. In a Q&A following the program the filmmakers expressed that they are interested in the concept of indigenous peoples as disrupters; those who throw things into disarray, akin to an alien landed on earth. Perhaps reflecting that concept, the film’s digital quilt of disparate elements is disorienting.
Sally Cloninger’s Mix-Mix (Halo Halo) (Washington, 2019) uses the Filipino dish halo-halo as a metaphor for community and self-actualization in the context of womanhood and queerness. Halo-halo is made from a mixture of separate ingredients—whatever is available—to form a cohesive dish of diverse elements. The film itself takes the structure of halo-halo, mixing together footage from three different decades of Cloninger’s life and meditating on her evolution as a queer woman, in—and then out—of the closet. Folded into the mixture are issues of misogyny, feminism, personal narrative and global context. Like the dish of its title, the film combines all of these issues to form a cohesive whole. In one of the more emotionally concise moments of the film, Cloninger places text on the screen against photos of her younger self, reflecting on notions of sexuality and self-denial.
PSU School of Film @ PIFF 