[2.4]
As a series of short films by Dominic Angerame, this is an overlong, exhaustingly repetitive meditation on construction and destruction. Unfortunately, this is generally less visually enthralling than it should be, and I get the impression that this work is much better suited for viewing in increments in an art gallery than all at once in a theatre. The shorts that make up this “symphony” all blend together in my memory, as their style and content are all closely related. Tight shots of bridges and buildings being destroyed, smoke rising from the rubble, superimposed images of shallow-focused shadows and lines intersecting in abstract ways. Angerame is effective in his use of these construction sites, which are so prevalent and thus almost taken for granted in the US, by shooting them with grainy black-and-white and purposefully denying his frames any context or hint of human life (except for a few rare instances). The focus is on the work being done, on the nature of birth and death, as if these terrifying machines were merely carrying out a program of systematic destruction and creation like worker ants. Though I initially found his purposeful elimination of context to be thrilling (in effect taking the ordinary world around us and, without interfering, by merely changing the way in which the camera captures the images, creating an otherworldly realm), I was much more drawn into the segment PREMONITION, in which the city of San Francisco plays the central role. We are treated to some startling scenes of desolate freeways, a lone runner moving slowly through this empty concrete jungle, wide stretches of graffiti depicting sperm, and a lonely, almost decrepit sign displaying the words “San Francisco.” While apparently the most obvious of the segments, it had the greatest effect on me, perhaps because it more easily triggered emotions, whereas Angerame’s collection of construction site imagery seemed like a cold experiment in formalism. Overall, the various pieces of this symphony definitely feel like they belong together, but unfortunately never feel like they build on that relationship. There are some interesting idea floating around the periphery of the frame, but Angerame doesn’t seem to have the desire to focus on them.
burning retina 