Squeeze
dir. Mika Rottenberg, USA, 2010, 20 mins
Screening times
May 10 16:30, Kinoteka 2
May 8 19:30, Kinoteka 2
May 9 19:00, Kinoteka 2
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Synopsis

A surrealistic film where reality and absurdity collide in a 20-minute narrative with no opening title or ending credits. The film becomes interpretive art — a film that asks viewers to leave when they think it's over. Instead of an entire reel of acted-out performances we get documentary film of outdoor labor in India and Arizona, integrated with acted footage from both locations (the workers there were "totally happy" to abide by Rottenberg's direction, she says), integrated with video of scripted doings in New York.

The story centers on a fictional underground factory in New York City that makes a block of art from lettuce, rubber, and blush. Squeeze imagines the facility is connected via aboveground holes to a real lettuce farm in Arizona and an actual rubber plantation in India. Through the openings, a row of women in New York massages the hands of the workers in Arizona and India.

The people in the film communicate mostly through shared tasks, not words. Finding themselves in the same factory or confined space, they try to make the best of it.

"This piece, which is trying to collapse these geographically distant places into one space, is a natural step for me - Rottenberg says - it's about using your body and being alienated from your body, objectifying your body and using it almost like a factory that can produce stuff. I feel like that's very feminine. I'm interested in how selling one's body can be empowering. I don't know if film and art can change the world — slowly, maybe. It's about creating consciousness".

Wybrane nagrody i festiwale /Selected festivals and awards: 2010- CPH DOX Kopenhaga/CPH DOX Copenhagen.

Makers

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potok obrazów; surrealistyczny ale nie niezrozumiały (s3k)
(polafilms)
nie przekonał mnie do siebie (wolian)
(akocmiel)
swietny w swej warstwie formalnej.... (fairyboi)
...w warstwie formalnej - obraz uprzedmiotowienia człowieka (ups... teraz przeczytałam opis obok i spostrzegłam, że niechcący ''weszłam w słowo'' reżyserce :-) ...cóż, to nie jest film, nad którym można by się zastanawiać po projekcji - głównie ze względu na powszechność tej konstatacji braku podmiotowości w pracy. Taki film może zrobić wrażenie chyba tylko na kimś podobnym do artysty... wykonującym wolny zawód, od kogo nigdy nie wymagano dyscypliny, ani pracy z procedurą czy też z harmonogramem itp. Ani to piękne, ani to odkrywcze - szkoda czasu. (kaga)