Bitte

Bitte

2001, 16 mm (video beta), colour, sound, 4 min.

As in his previous work, Yves-Marie Mahé works on this film frame by frame, manipulating pre-existent images from provocatively chosen porn films. Moving from old 35mm found footage of porn films, the film maker re-films it in 16mm, image by image, making use of a animation tools with the camera that frames the first part of the film from above, blocked between two gluing machines and lit from behind. The film plays on the linguistic ambiguity of the word "Bitte", a polite German expression used to respond to someone who says thank you, while in French it is used to indicate the male sexual organ. As the 16mm camera moves towards and away from what is being filmed, the raw material goes forward and backward, creating a rhythmic effect able to simulate in its form what the pornographic images show in their content.