"Passage a L'acte" is an experimental short film by video artist Martin Arnold. It was released in 1993. It is a remix of a scene from a 1962 screen adaptation of Harper Lee' seminal novel "To Kill a Mockingbird". It takes out of context a morning kitchen table breakfast scene and makes it something completely different.
Martin Arnold (Hey, Arnold!)
turns the scene into ominous but convoluted, dizzying and terrifying exploration of
interpersonal relationship within a family by means of continuous stretching
and pulsating repetition. Curiously, it is not a comment on "To Kill a Mockingbird" in any way. It just takes one particular scene as a source in order to make something of its own. Arnold wanted to take "better known" domestic moment in order to secure engaged attention from the viewers.
The original bit runs for about 10 seconds - Finch family had gathered around the breakfast table, children prepare for the first school day of the year. Father demands that his young son would not leave the table until his sister has finished eating. End of episode. Within the film it is barely significant. Just another brief showcase of character interaction - a
family in complete harmony with one another. "Passage a
L'acte" takes certain bits of that scene and transforms them into a
setpieces of their own - stretching it up to 12 minutes thus creating weird rocking motion coupled with explosions in composition.
The annihilation of original continuity completely defamiliarizes the scene. The
resulting narrative is constantly starts and stops. It is stuck, repeated and reversed and repeated once
again. This stuttering is staggering in its scope. And because of that new
narrative shows occurs. Unlike the original scene it is not that nice. It is disturbing. It shows concealed
tension.
"Passage a
L'acte" turns a
breakfast table scene into a microcosm of the family. It renders the scene
nonsensical but repetitive patterns expose the suppressed underbelly of the
relationships between its members. At first scene starts to look utterly
bizarre in its new warped continuity but then it starts to make sense. There is a pattern. Halts and repeats of every instant mark intense passage of time - it's a matter days and weeks, possibly month compressed. It is fair to say that time truly flies in "Passage a L'acte".
Overt
repetition of sounds and body movements shows profound absurdity of it all. Every spoken
line is stultifyingly repeated over and over again until it shreds any meaning
it must bear (here's a transcribed snippet from IMDB). It is nothing more than unintelligible barks and yelps. "Yes" can morph into "byah", "weh", "bam", "jam" or "haffa-now", "flupper", "patoot". The characters are stuck twitching in pointless loops back and
forth without any resolution. This
stutter is a showcase of a repetitive nature of everyday activities. It evokes untapped evergrowing frustration.
Such narrative can be jarring, tedious and comedic in
the same time. Think about it. Woman sits with uncanny smile on her face possibly trying to keep her act together, man reads the paper as if he was performing a dance with his eyes and head. Then boy gets up, open and closes the door many-many times. The repeated bits of slamming are distorted to the point it sounds like a machine gun offense. Subsequent dropping of a fork is also transformed into surrealist sonic dance composition. Originally just a snarky smirk from the girl is now transformed into rhythmic guttural noises. Kiss on a cheek through numerous repeats turns into grinding chomp. These volleys of sounds are like retaliating onslaught of woodpeckers.
"Passage a
L'acte" is a
testament on flexibility and versatility of film as an artform. It shows how far it can be taken in terms forms. It can be transformed in a variety of ways and every time it will be able to forge something completely new - another narrative or way of perception. It is important to
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