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| In Buenos Aires, the 25-year-old Exe is fired from his workplace at a warehouse store. He subsequently spends time loitering with his friends, visiting online ] rooms. They perform sex acts, like ], on each other in front of a ] for money. Exe walks in solitude through a flooded borough of the city; when he arrives at his family home, he logs on to a ] website. The movie transitions into the next segment by zooming into Exe's computer screen, where a group of African teenagers in Maputo, Mozambique are also seen engaging in ] for money. | In Buenos Aires, the 25-year-old Exe is fired from his workplace at a warehouse store. He subsequently spends time loitering with his friends, visiting online ] rooms. They perform sex acts, like ], on each other in front of a ] for money. Exe walks in solitude through a flooded borough of the city; when he arrives at his family home, he logs on to a ] website. The movie transitions into the next segment by zooming into Exe's computer screen, where a group of African teenagers in Maputo, Mozambique are also seen engaging in ] for money. | ||
| The Mozambique characters are also unemployed and empoverished, and perambulate through the streets between odd jobs and social events. One character is found urinating on an ], whereupon the film moves to the third segment, by following ants moving further into the earth, and finally arriving at a hand holding a ] in a jungle somewhere ]. The camera follows a couple of characters bathing together and walking through the jungle, before arriving at a technological factory in ], where ]s are made on an ]. | The Mozambique characters are also unemployed and empoverished, and perambulate through the streets between odd jobs and social events. One character is found urinating on an ], whereupon the film moves to the third segment, by following ants moving further into the earth, and finally arriving at a hand holding a ] in a jungle somewhere ]. The camera follows a couple of characters bathing together and walking through the jungle, before arriving at a technological factory in ], where ]s are made on an ]. The movie ends with a mechanical voice repeatedly saying "Okay." | ||
| ==Production== | ==Production== | ||
Revision as of 21:30, 14 August 2017
0000 film| The Human Surge | |
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| Directed by | Eduardo Williams |
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| Distributed by | Ruda Cine |
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| Running time | 97 minutes |
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The Human Surge (Template:Lang-es) is a 2016 experimental film directed, shot, written and edited by the Argentine director Eduardo Williams. It is Williams' first feature film, after a number of short films. The Human Surge is structured into three different narrative and geographical segments: one in Buenos Aires, the second in Maputo, and the third in Bohol.
The film follows its characters walking through different environments, with an emphasis on the spaces they are traversing. Williams has stated that he wanted to explore the sensation and feelings related to aimlessness and travel, and thereby "create a rhythm between excitement and boredom or surprise and depression." The characters depicted in the three segments are invariably poor, restless and on the search for connection with other human beings.
The film premiered at the Locarno Film Festival in 2016, where it won the Concorso Cineasti del Presente (Filmmakers of the Present). It was subsequently released at film festivals in Toronto and New York to critical acclaim. Comparisons have been made to other filmmakers working in the slow cinema sub-genre, where emphasis is made on the durational aspect of the film, rather than its narrative qualities.
Plot
In Buenos Aires, the 25-year-old Exe is fired from his workplace at a warehouse store. He subsequently spends time loitering with his friends, visiting online sex chat rooms. They perform sex acts, like fellatio, on each other in front of a web camera for money. Exe walks in solitude through a flooded borough of the city; when he arrives at his family home, he logs on to a Chaturbate website. The movie transitions into the next segment by zooming into Exe's computer screen, where a group of African teenagers in Maputo, Mozambique are also seen engaging in cybersex for money.
The Mozambique characters are also unemployed and empoverished, and perambulate through the streets between odd jobs and social events. One character is found urinating on an anthill, whereupon the film moves to the third segment, by following ants moving further into the earth, and finally arriving at a hand holding a smartphone in a jungle somewhere the Philippines. The camera follows a couple of characters bathing together and walking through the jungle, before arriving at a technological factory in Bohol, where tablet computers are made on an assembly line. The movie ends with a mechanical voice repeatedly saying "Okay."
Production
Williams (born 1987) had made six short films, in which he experimented with different video formats and textures. In the short films Pude ver in Puma (eng. Could See a Puma, 2011) and Tôi quên rôi! (eng. I forgot!, 2014), he and his usual cinematographers Joaquin Neira and Julien Guillery experimented with different aesthetic strategies—notably the use of long, handheld tracking shots (often described as "floating" and "restless"), amateur photography, as well as elliptical storytelling—which they further developed for The Human Surge.
For The Human Surge, Williams used three types of video formats, one for each segment: the Argentine segment was shot on 16 mm film, the Mozambique part with a Blackmagic pocket camera—subsequently recaptured in Super 16 from a computer monitor, and the final Philippine sequence on a digital RED camera.
Reception
The Human Surge received generally positive reviews. It won the main prize in the section "Filmmakers of the Present" at the 2016 Locarno Film Festival.
A number of critics picked up on the themes of alienation in the internet age, and how modern technology creates distance between people.
References
- ^ "Eduardo Williams: The Human Surge," Tate Modern, February 24, 2017.
- ^ "The Human Surge," Cineuropa, accessed August 14, 2017.
- Gustavo Beck, "Embracing Uncertainty: An Interview with Eduardo Williams," MUBI, August 8, 2016.
- Ela Bittencourt, "Interview: Eduardo Williams," Film Comment, October 5, 2016.
- Pude ver un Puma, Universidad del Cine (Vimeo), accessed August 14, 2017.
- ^ Nick Pinkerton, "Mountain Out of an Anthill," Artforum, February 3, 2017.
- ^ Leo Goldsmith, "The Wanderer: Eduardo Williams’ The Human Surge," Cinema Scope 68, TIFF 2016.
- ^ Andréa Picard, "Aboard the Human Express," Metrograph, March 1, 2017.
- Mark Peranson, "The Human Surge," Locarno Festival in Los Angeles, accessed August 14, 2017.
- ———. "El auge del humano," PardoLive, August 8, 2016.
- ———. "Cinema Scope 68 Editor’s Note," Cinema Scope 68, 2016.
- Zach Lewis, "#NYFF 2016: The Human Surge," Brooklyn Magazine, October 5, 2016.
External links
- The Human Surge at IMDb
- The Human Surge at Critics Round Up