NOVOCINE

14

AVESSO 2011, PT, 16 min


a film by Von Calhau!

Once upon a time there were two suits. A leopard suit and another leprosy suit (the leprosy suit resembles a little lady bug, as in the story). They are attached to each other by a rope. Each one pulls the rope towards itself, pulling the other suit towards itself. A montage of attractions, then. It could be said that each suit brings the ember to its sardine. The embers yes, like those that exist in volcanoes after the eruption. Eruption rhymes with explosion that perhaps leads to the climax of the film, the cut that brings together the two poles in a single movement; the rope dance seen from a blind eye, the third element. Triangle motorized by perpetual movement of apparent senses. To (not) finish, we say that it is above all a succession of volcano-images from a blind point of view.




text by Guilherme Figueiredo

Imagine you enter a room:
  You look around and it’s all made of large porous stones — cold and humid. The rocky chamber is unfazed by your presence and so you start exploring its insides. The ceiling is low and you scrape it with the loose hairs on the top of your head. You slightly duck and notice that the crevices in between the rocks forming the walls glow a dim light, you realise these divisions pulse with a sort of magnetic force. You feel compelled to slowly run your fingers through them, and you do that. You touch something that is sticking out of it. You press on it and it caves. “What was…”, a screeching sound echoes behind you so you completely turn your body around to observe a dark wooden desk with complexly adorned legs full of papers on top emerging from the ground on a copper platform. Confused, you walk to the table and grab one of the loose papers, reading the first paragraph:

  “Anomaly P4RS51
    Two rocks float at the same height from the ground at similar speeds towards each other. As they lessen the distance between them, they menace a touch. The closer they get, the fantasy of a collision grows. Just as they are a fraction of time away from touching, the hands grip the air in their full strength and the tension is ruined by the silence. They traverse each other like ghosts. We realise now that rocks don’t share realities among them, even though they are surrounded by the same world. Everything that is between their touch is new and explosive”.

  “A report?”, you say with the most cryptic facial expression I’ve ever seen.
You decide to read another one. A ripped in half piece of paper on the far west side of the table draws your attention. While walking towards it, you hear a sound much like a microscopic rockfall, you turn around and it immediately stops. You grab the paper while your hands shake uncontrollably, scared of it leaving you even more confused.

  “Anomaly B89TR1
    A piece of rope stuck to the ground violently flutters its edges. The movement creates an invisible sharpness, cutting air — slaughtering it. When grabbed, the piercing immediately stops simulating a dead snake. The rope no longer appears to slice anything but hot grease, its edges return to a round shape. Most bizarre is, the hole from which it grows, a slime- like liquid oozes off of it as if alive, as if…”

  You start scrambling the papers on top of the table looking for the other half and it’s nowhere to be found. You start to sweat, having no answers makes you feel like a blob. You recline onto the table and run your arm through your wet forehead. While trying to take your mind off of the papers you see some movement on the corner of the room. A stone on the wall vibrates and steadily transfers its vibration to the first rock on the floor, then the next one, infecting a third stony block. The shaking stones grow in your direction. You messily climb the table fearing your life and while on all fours, your mind reads a small phrase off of one of the papers right under your head.

  “Loose rocks follow those who lose the earth beneath their feet.”

  Without time to react wisely you slide through the table and land your feet on the opposite side of the shaking room. As you do so, a parasitic shiver climbs your legs and stops at the waist. It lodges itself in the bellybutton. The vibration stops and the platform leaves with the table.





direction, edit, sound VON CALHAU! with PETE ALVES, VON CALHAU! edit, camera FREDERICO LOBO assistance FILIPE TEXAS REBELO production PAULA FERNANDES, SERRALVES aknowledgements EMPRESA DAS LOUSAS DE VALONGO, BRITAFIEL, CIRCOLANDO, MIGUEL RAMOS, CARLOS BARROS, IVANO, PEDRO AUGUSTO, PAULO ABREU, RICARDO NICOLAU, PETE ALVES