Latest video reviews
Rain by Mike Hoolboom
No more taking turns on history’s wheel
trying to collect old debts no one can pay.
This time the country we hoped for
was each other.
Uploaded to Vimeo in May—and released under a Public Domain Dedication license that lets anyone modify it—this latest videopoem by Canadian filmmaker Mike Hoolboom has a distinctly prophetic, left-populist flavor. Hoolboom’s use of watery images provides an interesting point of comparison with Ian Gibbin’s Because We Can. If I find them tantalizing, it’s in part because we’re in a drought where I live, and in part because, in some ways, I do feel as if the currrent planetary malaise could be turned around if we could simply refocus on what matters, through mutual aid and democratic decision-making, but at the same time I see very little chance of that happening.
Because We Can by Ian Gibbins
An exemplary videopoem by Ian Gibbins, blending the natural and the artificial into a poetic whole. Because We Can “was originally developed for an exhibition at FELTspace Gallery, Adelaide, South Australia, in November, 2023,” according to a recent post on Ian’s blog.
“We purify, filter, sift, rectify, unburden… stupefy, impose, stun, devastate, overwhelm… radiate, bewitch…”
But why? Why do we cause so much damage to our own environment, and then spend so much in attempting to recreate it after our own designs? What is it that underlies our desire to transform the natural world into something of our own making?
Botanic Gardens symbolise the tension between the human desire to admire nature and to control it. Almost none of the vegetation in a Botanic Garden is native to the area. Consequently, the original local environment must be skilfully managed and manipulated to provide diverse growth conditions suitable for exotic plants from all over the world. At the same time, the Gardens must be somehow attractive to human visitors. In a dry climate such as South Australia, the fundamental key to meeting both these demands is the controlled supply of water.
Although a major function of modern botanic gardens is dedicated to preserving and understanding endangered species, many were originally established to celebrate and illustrate the achievements of the colonialist enterprise.
In this video, we see the different ways in which water inhabits the interfaces between the natural and the manufactured. Now and then, we catch a glimpse of a reflection or shadow of the on-lookers, the passers-by, the lives that impact on everything they touch. Yet nothing here is as it seems: every scene has been composited from multiple sources with a single botanic garden.
All the original video and audio was recorded with a mobile phone at Adelaide Botanic Garden around Kainka Wirra on unceded Kaurna land, South Australia. The text is derived by thesaurus substitution from samples off the Adelaide Botanic Garden website.
I’ve spent plenty of time in botanical gardens over the years, so I was struck by how well the film captures their essence without actually focusing on the plants themselves, approaching the subject matter sideways, as successful poems so often do.
Single-use Plastic Bag by Abeer Ameer
UK filmmaker Janet Lees adapted a viral poem by Iraqi British poet Abeer Ameer. She told me in an email,
Like many of her poems, this has stayed with me in a visceral way since I read it. For a long time I have been wanting to make a film with Abeer’s poetry, and particularly this poem, but I couldn’t find a way in visually. Then when I was out walking by a children’s playground a few weeks ago, it became clear – I needed to encapsulate that cry we hear so often on social media, ‘What if it was your child?’
Here are the credits from Vimeo:
Based on the poem ‘Single-use Plastic Bag’, by Abeer Ameer @abeer_ameer77
Creative direction & video editing, Janet Lees
Music, ‘Dream Thieves’, Richard Quirk
Footage, Janet Lees, Motion Array & Pexels
Additional sound, freesound.org: children1.mp3 by yacou — https://freesound.org/s/190894/ — License: Creative Commons 0
Seaside Mono.wav by morganpurkis — https://freesound.org/s/402392/ — License: Creative Commons 0
Giggles.aiff by Alex_hears_things — https://freesound.org/s/457275/ — License: Creative Commons 0
Toddler Laughing.wav by Stevious42 — https://freesound.org/s/259625/ — License: Attribution 3.0
Dark by James E. Kenward
A film by Jane Glennie in collaboration with poet/performer James E. Kenward. Here’s the description from Kenward’s website:
Award-winning poetry-film director Jane Glennie came together with poet James E. Kenward on ‘Dark’, made with Jane’s unique photo-collage style. The soundtrack features a fresh piano-arrangement of Stravinsky’s ‘The Rite of Spring’ dueted with the spoken poem ‘Dark’. Jane took a year to hone her response, in the medium of light, to a poem about the dark. ‘Dark’ has gone on to play in festivals all over the world.
There is something magical in the coming together of all the different art-forms in this production.
In some ways the film provides a momentary solution to an age old puzzle that is so much a part of our lives. How to be with the dark itself? Must we always reach for the light?
Please see the interview I conducted with Kenward, where we delve into his process of musical composition for poetry films.
Lost Stream by Fiona Tinwei Lam
Vancouver-based poet Fiona Tinwei Lam recites a poem from her 2019 collection Odes & Laments. I found this animation by Quinn Kelly unexpectedly moving—especially when the flow of the creek is replaced by the flow of traffic on a divided highway. Uploaded late last year [to Vimeo; now no longer online], the description reads:
A poetry video based on a poem about the city’s hidden and lost streams. Animation by Quinn Kelly. Narration by the poet Fiona Tinwei Lam. Audio-recording by Lileth Charlet. Recorded at CEDaR sound studio at the University of British Columbia. Sound design by Bill Hardman. Part of the Vancouver Poet Laureate’s City Poems Project 2022-2024.
There’s also a version with very elegant subtitling.
