Hammer Museum – Los Angeles, CA
Live Review: 12/17/09

The crowd at the Hammer Museum this Thursday night were audience to some of the year’s best music videos, including the latest by directors Michel Gondry and Keith Schofield. The FLUX event represented award-winning filmmakers from the francophone world, along with two directors from Brazil–Didiu Rio Branco and Robson Minghini–and one from Spain, Jesus Hernandez. Videos represented here ranged from the highly technical to the inventively simple.

Branco and Minghini’s video for NASA’s “O Pato” follows the animated adventures of the two NASA DJs–besuited in astronaut gear–making merry with their manimal friends in a São Paulo bar. Other highlights of the video include dancing cockroaches and furry fellatio.

Another NASA video, by the talented folks at Fluorescent Hill, brings to life the Tom Waits and Kool Keith track “Spacious Thought” with brilliant animations of a blind-folded, tear drop-shaped monster rampaging and colliding through a watercolor and pencil-shaded city, mixing street art iconography with a stylistic palette.

The three following videos were drawn from the 5th Annual Protoclip Independent Music Video Festival in Paris, France. Ignatus’ “Dans l’herbe” (Dir. Olivier Martin) is about the simple virtues of pissing in the grass. It won the Prix de L’animation (prize for best animation).

Ignatus – “Dans l’herbe” (Dir. Olivier Martin)

Olivier Gondry (older brother of Michel Gondry) and Jesus Hernandez’s submissions demonstrate that filmmakers need not rely on sophisticated technology and special effects wizardry to produce compelling films. Their approach is decidedly low-tech and DIY. With the imaginative use of props, the two videos turn a simple concept into effective storytelling.

Hermentaire – “Chewing Homme” (Dir. Olivier Gondry)

Mondrian – Beware the Killer! (Dir. Jesus Hernandez)

Kevin Phillips’ video for Múm’s “Sing Along” is a beautifully produced short film about a pastoral family performing an animal sacrifice of ambiguous symbolic import. During the filmmaker presentations after the screening, Director Kevin Phillips showed slides of his storyboards, essentially illegible scribbles understandable only to the director himself. It’s remarkable to see how works in the early draft process become actualized on film.

Múm – “Sing Along” (Dir. Kevin Phillips)

Radical Friend’s video for Yeasayer’s “Ambling Alp,” previously posted here at EM, also screened at the event, along with a director’s cut of Charlotte Gainsbourg and Beck’s “Heaven Can Wait.” My favorite video of the night, however, was Stefan Nadelman’s brooding animations for Ramona Falls’ “I Say Fever,” featuring 19th-century saloons and bestial transformation that give new meaning to “bird flu.”

Ramona Falls – “I Say Fever” (Dir. Stefan Nadelman)

Grotesque clay monsters and cellophane creeks abound in Allison Schulnik’s strangely apt video for “Ready Able,” off of Grizzly Bear’s very excellent Veckatimest.

Grizzly Bear – “Ready, Able” (Dir. Allison Schulnik)

To even out the night, Director Michel Gondry premiered his latest production, a colorfully choreographed video for Mia Doi Todd’s “Open Your Heart.” Gondry had the Riverside Community College Marching Band put on customized T-shirts (woven by Todd and friends) with fronts and backs showing off complementary colors. To a steady bossa nova beat, the band synchronized their movements to create a brilliant display of shifting rainbow hues. Think North Korea’s mass games except much simpler and a lot less creepy. According to Todd, the concept for the video came first and she penned the song specifically with Gondry’s video in mind.

Afterward, Mia Doi Todd and Michel Gondry performed almost a full set of her music, with Gondry on the drums.

***
All photos by Marla Aufmuth

http://flux.net/

http://hammer.ucla.edu/

via Abe Ahn, 29 December 2009 8:46am | 6 |