jules et jim (2004) – ctgr, jimpunk and maya
via http://www.furtherfield.org/displayreview.php?review_id=116
This is a soft bitter work that starts off as a quirky flow of red, green and white little pop up windows hopping about the desktop, and ends brimming with intensity and sadness. It is a re-make of Henri-Pierre Roche’s novel Jules et Jim: an obscure story made famous by Francois Truffaut’s 1962 film adaptation. Like Truffaut’s film, this piece is tightly edited to that the first part (perhaps up to the Script Alert) giving us a sense of the lively frivoloties of sexual and emotional goodtimes. As the relationships between the fictional threesome get kinda complex, Maya, Jimpunk and ctgr treat us to an onslaught of freeze-frames, jump-cuts and terrifyingly dizzying movement. At one point, when my desktop was shuddering under the rhythmic flickering of several grey and blood-red windows, the onlslaught became too severe and I hammered at the keyboard trying to find an escape. I was ignored, and the pulsing taunts continued, made more extreme by a tiny pause, a little breath that seemed to offer me some control, some voice. I walked away and when I returned all was calm and an elongated mock browser window sat quietly to the left as Kraftwerk’s Computer Love played gently alongside. Now if that isn’t tainted and twisted love, I don’t know what is.
Reviewer: text provided by Kate Southworth