Dada

J. Karelius | Finland 2015 | Experimental, Documentary | 7 min
P+D+M: J. Karelius.
    Contact: J. Karelius.
    Tampere Film Festival (TFF), National Competition 8
    11+12 March, 2016, Plevna 2 and 5

TFF: "On the brink of the First World War, the Dadaists made a statement that ”not them, but instead the whole world and its people have gone insane”, which brings forth similar reactions in today’s world. Is the threat of war real? Do the mega-wealthy own virtually everything on the planet, including power? Does art bow down to money and Machiavelli’s princes? DaDa: One of the perpetual tasks of the artist is to create chaos, to confuse fixed views and values, to erase the boundary between good and bad, to stand up to the academic tyranny of being right, to corrupt the current taste and to encourage the revolution of spirit."

AA: A comprehensive summary of the Dada experience. It started a hundred years ago during WWI in Zürich. We learn about Hugo Ball, Hans Arp, Tristan Tzara, Francis Picabia, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, and their friends, about Cabaret Voltaire and Lenin staying on the other side of the Spiegelgasse playing chess, about Guillaume Apollinaire who died on the front, about Alfred Jarre. The name came from Russian ("da, da") or French (a rocking horse). The world had gone insane in a cloud of poison gas. Art had been destroyed. Traditional values had led to the catastrophe. The Venus of Milo was given an enema. The movement was in a constant fight with itself, riddled with personal conflicts. Huelsenbeck spread the influence in Germany. The Dada movement has many rightly heirs.

A film not only about the Dada but itself Dada, a collage of superimpositions and impossible associations.