The Setting of Violence_ application for IFFR

for download: Chrome, and click -in the film, right under- the three dots. Safari/ Firefox: you can right-click on the movie in the pop-up menu

“My fascination for film lies in one of the most outstanding features of film (and photography): its transparency. We look through the medium, to what is performed within the frame, but we look also at the medium, at how the medium evolves, mutates, and expands. So, to me, film is seeing one thing, under the light of the other.“

an introduction, 5 short clips (low res), and a sketch of a spacial presentation, and some film stills.

Motivation

I saw the movie Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma (1975) van Pier Paolo Pasolini for the first time as an art student, years ago. A group of fascists subjects 18 young boys and girls to their cruel power for 120 days in a villa, in the puppet state Salò, in the last year of World War 2 in Italy.

Besides displayed humiliation, torture, and murder, I was immediately struck by how prominent modernist art, especially futuristic painting, was in this film. As an art student, I always associated avant-garde and modernist art with positivism and progressive world views. So, what were these modernist paintings doing in this fascist setting? Are these paintings silent witnesses or accomplices? Did Pasolini denounce the avant-garde for its collaboration with the fascist regime? Or (I don’t think so) did he consider the avant-garde as a victim, abused by these fascist rulers? What connection did Pasolini want to make between futuristic art and these outrages committed by fascist rulers? There had been a strong relationship between fascism and this avant-garde movement. Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, the foreman of the futurist movement, called himself an ultra-fascist, and Benito Mussolini, the fascist leader, proclaimed that fascism wouldn’t had this form without the futurist movement.

What I do

I examine Pasolini’s intentions by editing these frames and stripping them of all atrocities, victims, and perpetrators. The paintings in the background now become foreground. What remain are empty spaces with an ominous atmosphere. What took place here, or what is going to take place?

The duration of the film-stills is stretched from their original 1/24 second to a much longer timespan. Partly through AI processing, the stills are set in subtle motion again. I zoom in on the paintings, and hover between still and motion, photo and film. The frames become spacious, as if the viewer is inside the rooms. Besides the interiors, two landscape scenes are included in the loops.

The text slides show quotes from Charles Baudelaire, Roland Barthes, and Pierre Klossowski, spoken by these fascists. They cocooned with high culture, probably as legitimization of their misdeeds.

The soundscape is composed of (a.o.)sounds outside of the notorious villa, radio “white noise,” with fragments of a radio speech by Mussolini.

Total length of the film:

In this link, only short clips of each loop are displayed. Five loops are simultaneously playing. The estimated time to see all loops after each other is approx. 20 minutes.

PS:

This project is presented for the first time -for only one week- in the MAMbo, the Museum for Modern Art in Bologna, in October/November 2025, the town Pasolini was born. This exhibition took place fifty years after the release of the film Saló, and the tragic death of Pasolini.