Our very first G05 class outing happened yesterday at NUS Museum featuring the exhibition: Double Vision! Double Vision is a selection of video works and experimental films that are inspired by the affinities between the Philippines and Vietnam in the history of the American wars in the Pacific.
Videos & artist films by: David Griggs, Gym Lumbera, Miko Revereza, Roxlee, Shireen Seno, Angel Velasco Shaw, Stephanie Syjuco and Kidlat Tahimik.
Pdf format of the Brochure: http://www.nus.edu.sg/museum/pdf/2016/NUSM_DoubleVision.pdf
When we first entered the exhibition, the first film we watched was Shotgun Tuding by Shireen Seno
Trailer:
In summary, the film is about Tuding (the protagonist) who journeys to a distant town to hunt down the man who got her youngest sister Teresit pregnant. Along the way she
This film is constructed after Pancit Western, which is the Pinoy form of Spaghetti Westerns.
What I liked about this film:
Shots used are rather interesting. I found the dramatic close up of the subject matter’s face and dramatic pan out shots to be rather comedic and kind of poking fun at the mainstream western American Wild Wild West kind of films, where two cow boys would be having their showdown.
Color pallete used in this film was muted and had a rather soft and dusty feeling to me.
Nailed by Angel Velasco Shaw
Is a Filipina’s exploration of a Catholic Church and 400 years of Spanish and American colonialism woven in a montage of images, sounds, stories and performances.
Although I watched this film from the start, I didn’t have much patience to sit through this particular film. The narrations were muffled, and I think with subtitles I would actually have stayed till the end of the film…
But regardless, I took away some learning points from the video in which I really find it interesting. The way the artists juxtaposes 2 shots: The dying pig being tortured to it’s death on the ground & the baby cradled in the mother’s arms; was rather fascinating to me because, in the case of the ritual where the child is baptized in one scene ( I think?), a pig is slaughtered. The phrase, ‘A life for a life.’ came to my mind immediately after this scene, and then Yit Ling (my classmate who was sitting beside me) said :’ The pig is like a baby also… because it can only scream and cry and you have no idea what it is saying, but it is suffering.’ My heart sank when I heard that.
ABCD by Rox Lee is an experimental animation video shot on Super 8 film. It uses techniques such as hand-drawn animation, painting on film, found footage, and collage to advocate a radically new and personal understanding of the alphabet.
I really liked the use of a mixture of techniques to this film as it adds variety. The film is a socio-political commentary. By incorporating the use of the order of alphabets, it made things a little disturbing in a sense by which the use of hand-drawn animation and Alphabetical sequence usually seen on American TV shows for children to teach them about alphabets, things take a darker turn when something so innocent turns into something morbid and cruel.
Instead of the usual, ‘A is for Apple, B is for Boy etc.’ the film goes ‘ D is for Dynamite’ and then the following scene is a morbid display of explosion etc.
My thoughts at the end of the exhibition:
Sad to say, I was not as enthralled as I expected to be after watching the film exhibition as I did not understand majority of the films. Perhaps it is because I have little interest in politics. The film that kept my attention from start to end is Shotgun Tuding by Shireen Seno as I felt there was a narrative story plot goal for me to follow from start to end. But regardless, I took away some lessons from this exhibition and that is the choice of color pallete, type of shots to be excuted and use of different techniques to evoke certain emotions in the viewers.
