Dialectics of 'imperfect cinema' explored through digital clips

A series of four digital video installations, on display here, explore the concept of cinema and a seminal text "For an Imperfect Cinema" (1969) by Cuban filmmaker Julio Garcia Espinosa.

Created by artist Lallan, who was born in 1986 into a tribe of pastoralists in a valley of the Aravali mountains, the video works are currently mounted at the cultural centre Triveni Kala Sangam, and explore a blend of poetics and cinema.

Lallan, who otherwise works with "vivid and varied" documentaries and social films, has titled the four-work show "An Imperfect Cinema", which suit the works he created for the show, he told IANS.

But, what is imperfect cinema? Espinosa answers for us: "(It is) the opposite of a cinema principally dedicated to celebrating results, the opposite of a self-sufficient and contemplative cinema, the opposite of a cinema which 'beautifully illustrates' ideas or concepts which we already possess."

By that definition, Lallan's works fall into the line of imperfect cinema, something he says is "a personal exploration of just what cinema is, cinema as an existing and evolving form".

Put simply, the video works "are not something to be projected in a movie theatre" or "the film that someone would sit and pay for", but a deeper investigation into what constitutes cinema itself.

A tool Lallan employs, the cinematic montage, gets highlighted upon viewing of the digital videos.

"The concept of montage was introduced back in the Russian Revolution days. Montage was introduced on film. If you look at montage, it's mostly abstract.

"If you have to describe a sequence, it's the subject or hints of what the subject is, put all into a processor -- like a food processor, you put all the vegetables in and churn it up. It's a lot of abstract," he explained.

"It's just loving montage for the sake of montage, which is not very prevalent. People have some agenda when they're making things. I also have that and it's difficult to free the mind of that agenda," Lallan said.

Four of his works, "The Face", "Statis", "A Convolution" and "Toward An Impure Poetry", are on view here till December 15.

--IANS

sj/mag/bg