Moment presents a continuous, fixed gaze by the camera at a girl’s face (Tina Fraser). The fixity, although paralleling the spectator’s position, nevertheless marks itself off as different from our view because it refuses the complex system of cuts, movements, invisible transitions etc. which classic cinema developed to capture our subjectivity and absorb it into the filmic text. In this way, the distinction between the camera and the viewer is emphasized. Moreover, the sadistic components inherent in the pleasurable exercise of the controlling gaze are returned to the viewer, as it is he/she who must construct the scenario by combining a reading of the image with an imagined (but suggested) series of happenings off-screen.

Paul Willemen