Cinema
Our Trip to Africa
Unsere Afrikareise
Peter Kubelka · 1966
Synopsis
Twelve minutes. A group of Europeans travelling in Africa: they shoot, they pose, they talk, they laugh. The editing brings together images and sounds that were not recorded together, and from this juxtaposition comes what the trip left unsaid. No commentary comes to explain it.
Context
A couple from Wels hired the author in 1961 to film a hunting expedition in Africa with three companions. He brought back three hours of footage and fourteen hours of sound, which he learned by heart and took five years to edit. Rejecting synchronous sound, which in his view merely imitates nature, he joins each image to a sound recorded elsewhere during the journey: the chatter of the tourists comes to rest on a zebra that has been shot. The film was shown in 1967 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Who it is for
Twelve minutes, to be seen several times: the first viewing is not enough, as the editing moves faster than one's reading of it. Animals are killed in front of the camera.
Prizes and reception
Regarded by Jonas Mekas as one of the few masterpieces of cinema, and still its author's best-known work.
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