VALIE EXPORT - Invisible Adversaries

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Anna, an artist, is obsessed with the invasion of alien doubles bent on total destruction. Her schizophrenia is reflected in the juxtapositions of long movie camera takes with violently edited montages: private with public spaces; black & white with colou
Director: VALIE EXPORT, Peter Weibel (cooperation); Script: Peter
Weibel, VALIE EXPORT (cooperation), based on an idea of VALIE EXPORT;
Cinematography: Wolfgang Simon; Assistant: Rudi Palla; Editing: Herbert
Baumgartner, VALIE EXPORT , Juno Sylva Englander; Photography: Helga
Borsodi, Hermann Hendrich, Monika Hubmann, Wilhelm Krejci, Wolfgang
Soos, Karl Heinz Koller, Eric Timmermann, VALIE EXPORT; Production:
VALIE EXPORT; Cast: Susanne Widl, Peter Weibel, Josef Plavec, Monika
Helfer-Friedrich, Helke Sander, Dominik Dusek, Herbert Schmid, Eduard
Neversal.

Anna, an artist, is obsessed with the invasion of alien doubles bent on
total destruction. Her schizophrenia is reflected in the juxtapositions
of long movie camera takes with violently edited montages: private with
public spaces; black & white with colour, still photographs with
video, earsplitting sounds with disruptive camera angles. Anna uses her
body like a map; after a devastating quarrel with her lover, she paints
red stitches on herself. Watching their scenes together, we realize how
seldom, if ever before, the details of sexual intimacy have been shown
in film from the point of view from a woman. Export privileges rupture
over unity and never settles for one-dimensional solutions
(Artforum, Nov. 1980)

One of the most original films in this year´s Exposition, Invisible
Adversaries is a tour de force of cinematic invention. It should bring
international recognition to Valie Export, an Austrian experimental
filmmaker known heretofore in America mostly by reputation. This is her
first attempt at a feature-length narrative, and it reveals a
prodigious talent at work. The title refers to extraterrestrial aliens
called ´Hyksos´, malevolent forces that enter human bodies like incubi
and initiate the decline of civilization. Not to be taken literally,
the Hyksos are a poetic metaphor for the modern Zeitgeist, the
apocalyptic mood of the times. Ms. Export uses this theme as a
framework for some of the most audacious and amazing experiments since
Cocteau. The comparison is appropriate, for on one level Invisible
Adversaries is about art and the artist, a modern Blood of the Poet. To
this, Export brings a fresh and intelligent sensibility,
characteristically self-referential. Her visual resources include
mirrors, still photography, video, dance, and films within the film,
all employed with a bold and surprising inventiveness.
(Excerpt from the catalog notes of the 1978 Los Angeles International Film Exposition - Gene Youngblood).

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Data

Price: 

36.00 EUR

Publisher: 

Label: 

Index DVD

Publishing date: 

Monday, January 1, 2001

Runtime: 

106

Discs: 

1 DVD5

Language: 

German

Subtitles: 

English

Region: 

Multizone

Video: 

PAL

Aspect ratio: 

PAL

Colour: 

Colour & B&W

Sound: 

DD2.0