Arrêté

Arrêté

2001, Austria/Germany, 16mm, colour, sound, 4 min.

Of surveying the world and cinemas joyful daring. What can be heard, never stopping, seems to be from some cuttings or other, in the background the bells of a herd of goats, and in the foreground geese (and church bells, a few people: richness), and once, possibly a shepherd, someone who loudly calls “arrêtez! Stop!” rather than “firm” (permanence, stability), the title Arrêté. What can be seen is the interior of a house, and the sound suggests in the same way as what can be seen of its surroundings through the doors and windows and cracks - both architecture and light - that it is somewhere in the country. One of these openings to the exterior occupies the precise center of each image. After a fade-in, at the beginning of every scene, we can see the space around or leading to the opening at the maximum aperture, until the space is almost submerged in light; the lens aperture then closes smoothly to the minimum stop and darkness discreetly envelopes the visible elements; this is followed by a fade-out. All cloudless summer days are present here, as a balsam. (With a fly...) - just like the substance of film, in its inner disquiet, in its schism: the cinematographic image and the “pre-cinematographic” frame, the switch between different perceptions in the other or around the others, in the movement of the light.

Olaf Möller