PROGRAM 4: NEW HEROISM
Alternative Histories of Modern Conflict
Sunday, 8 June, 12.00h, Cinema
Through videogames and big-budget promotional films, the US army sets off to court new recruits. It is propagated that today’s national security has to be enforced far away from home through high-tech military action. The symbiotic relation of advanced technology and the soldier’s male body has a long tradition in recruitment and propaganda films. In this program, these films are put in contrast with personal accounts on the brutal reality of training and warfare.
BIJ KOP EN STAART
Prod: Dutch Ministry of Defense, Department of Personnel and Publicity
video / 00:21:30 / Netherlands / 1960
General information film about the combat training of Dutch conscripts. In addition to much material on military exercises, the film contains beautiful impressions of the architecture of the General Spoor barracks in Ermelo.
STREAKED LIGHTNING
Prod: Central Office of Information, Air Ministry
16mm / 00:05:00 / GB / 1960
A Royal Air Force recruiting and propaganda film built around the image of the Electric Lightning fighter.
RECRUITMENT VIDEO
Ann Course / Paul Clark
video / 00:02:30 / GB / 2000
A video filled with Freud, family life, sexual lust and violence. All this sup- ported by the thrilling music of an old punk hit.
NOCTURNES
Anri Sala
video / 00:11:30 / France / 1999
In Nocturnes two men discuss their experiences of life. Denis, a young French soldier recently returned from the Balkan, speaks with alarming candor of his brutal training and subsequent role as an assassin expected to seek out and annihilate key military targets. Jacques, the owner of a tropical aquarium, reveals the harsh realities and stresses of life within the fish tanks lining his house.
KENNY LOGGINS – DANGER ZONE
Tony Scott
video / 00:03:30 / USA / 1986
‘Revvin’ up your engine, listen to her howlin’ roar, metal under tension, beg- gin’ you to touch and go. The highway to the Danger Zone…’ The music video to the title song of the 1986 Hollywood classic Top Gun.
ENDURING FREEDOM: THE OPENING CHAPTER
Klaus Obermeyer
video / 00:05:00 / USA / 2002
‘It’s not a question of if we go to combat, it’s a question of when’, barks a recruit in Enduring Freedom: The Opening Chapter, the first US military-pro- duced promotional film to hit movie theaters since World War II. Cut with TV-commercial rhythm and set to a symphonic score, this mini-movie flies through the barrage of images from the world-spanning war on terror. (Ed Halter)
SUKA (BITCH)
Igor Voloshin
35mm / 00:18:00 / Russia / 2001
Endless war and deaths in Chechnya. Suka is a journey to hell based on the experience of an ordinary serviceman, culminating in a scene where Russians kill Russians in a friendly fire incident. A film about the cruel absurdity of war in general.