Paolo Gioli - Quando l'occhio trema (1989)

An homage to Luis Buñuel - an in particular, his early Surrealist films - in the evocation of the eye slitting scene in Un Chien Andalou (albeit in a far more palatable, less cringe-inducing manner), Gioli eschews Buñuel's metaphoric incitement to revolution to open one's eyes to visionary possibilities, and instead, presents a whimsical illustration of the apparatus of the human eye. Juxtaposing manipulated found film (most notably, from L'Age d'or) with the frenetic (and occasionally, manually animated) rapid eye movement in the act of constant scanning, surveillance, and observation, Quando l'occhio trema presents the human eye as the instrumental origin for the cognition of images - the eye as universe, as infinitely celestial, as the center of the ecliptic - the fundamental receptor by which images are registered, subsumed, processed, interpreted, and transformed by human consciousness. In contrast to Buñuel's transgressive act towards the liberation of images, Gioli's film fades to black with the closing of the frenetic eye, perhaps a reminder that even in the midst of violent revolution, there remains a sacredness towards reverie and imagination in the creation of art.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• experimental film
• avant-garde
• short film
• italian cinema