The ability to make a meme is stronger than 10 million
fireflies
Meme to meet you
On friday, we were shown two weird short films, and they were
'Down the Cellar' and 'Food' by Jan Švankmajer. A very interesting (for a
lack of a better word) Czech director.
In all my 19 years of living in this living world, I have
never watched, seen or hear anything about surrealism in any media, books or
even in a conversation. But I might be wrong. Maybe I have seen some form of
surrealism and just didn't know the name of it.
But as I enrolled to MMU and was exposed to many forms of art,
I could definitely say that surrealism artworks are not my cup of tea. They
never fail to make me comfortable and is too far out from my brain capacity to
grasp the hidden meaning behind them and it takes me a long time to figure out
the meaning.
These two short films is a testament to that.
From what I could see in 'Down the Cellar', it is a about a
journey of a little girl as she travels down the cellar to bring some potatoes
and encounter some definitely weird situations along the way.
To be honest, I think the weird encounters she has is actually
a manifestation of her fears as she go down the cellar to take some potatoes. She
saw strangers she passed by as creepy people who want to harm her. Throughout
the short film she tries to escape the darkness and a black cat. When she
almost made it out of the cellar , she trips and loses her potatoes and has to
go once again into the dark.
In the short film 'Food', I was both amazed and uncomfortable
about how the film portrays the human relationship by using food.
Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner
In the first act, breakfast, a long line of workers consume
breakfast regurgitated by the worker who went before them.
At lunch, two men, one dressed sharply and one in casual
clothes, share a table in a restaurant. After failing to catch the waiter’s
attention, they hungrily devour the objects around them. Tablecloths,
serviettes and plates are all consumed via the magical process of stop-motion
animation. Even their clothes are eaten. Whereas the sharply-dressed fellow
eats his ‘lunch’ with more finesse, the poor man gobbles it like an animal.
When everything is consumed the wealthy man tricks his companion into eating
his knife and fork too, pretending to swallow his, only to produce them again
and use them to cannibalise his buddy. The upper-class character
physically consuming his working-class counterpart.
Lastly, dinner. It shows different people eating their
body parts, which they depend on to live.
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