M HKA Ensembles

Video, 00:15:00.

Collection: Collection MHKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. BK7929).

A girl talks on the telephone, a car drives by, a young man has an epileptic fit, a tram slowly turns at a crossroads, a panorama of the city by night pans from left to right. For much of the time we observe characters who are going somewhere or sitting and chatting with one another. Sometimes, the film speeds up its tempo and becomes like a teaser for itself; sometimes it slows down, and we see long, static shots – the movement of life in real time. Modern history, with all its attention to detail and the rituals of everyday routine, always remains in focus in this film shot without a script, by chance. A direct angle, a medium-shot, but more often a long shot, the interspersing of long and short episodes, an uneven rhythm. In this film, there is no classical narrative, all is as if it had been assembled from chance scenes with no unambiguous links between them. We never find out where the characters are going, or what their aims are, but we do see how an implicit sense of alarm is concealed behind all their simple actions and movements. Unfinished Film can be interpreted as a re-enactment of the everyday life of the noughties.