Senses of Cinema World Poll 2024: my favourites

 

RaMell Ross: Nickel Boys (US 2024). Based on the novel by Colson Whitehead, RaMell Ross creates something profoundly cinematic, even reinventing the fundamental device of the point-of-view shot. He makes us see in a new way.

In viewing order.

SENSES OF CINEMA SHORTLIST (TOP TEN NEW FILMS)

The Old Oak (Ken Loach, 2023) DCP, Tennispalatsi, Helsinki

Zielona granica (Green Border, Agnieszka Holland, 2023) DCP, UGC Danton, Paris

Anatomie d'une chute (Anatomy of a Fall, Justine Triet, 2023) DCP, MK2 Odéon Côté St Michel, Paris

Benediction (Terence Davies, 2021) DCP, UGC Danton, Paris

Cerrar los ojos (Close Your Eyes, Víctor Erice, 2023) DCP, Lapinsuu, Midnight Sun Film Festival, Sodankylä

Dane-ye anjir-e ma'abed (The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Mohammad Rasoulof, 2024) DCP, Sheridan Opera House, Telluride Film Festival

Apocalipse nos Trópicos (Apocalypse in the Tropics, Petra Costa, 2024) DCP, Le Pierre, Telluride Film Festival

No Other Land (Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Rachel Szor, 2024) DCP, Le Pierre, Telluride Film Festival

Santosh (Sandhya Suri, 2024) DCP, Le Pierre, Telluride Film Festival

Io capitano (Matteo Garrone, 2023) DCP, Kinopalatsi, Love & Anarchy: Helsinki International Film Festival

THE FILM OF THE YEAR

Sois belle et tais-toi ! / Be Pretty and Shut Up (Delphine Seyrig, FR 1982) 2023 restoration by Centre audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir and Bibliothèque nationale de France * DCP with English subtitles * Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna - I saw this restoration last year, but now with English subtitles it made full sense.

I NEW

The Old Oak (Ken Loach, GB 2023) DCP * Tennispalatsi LUXE 6, Helsinki

Stormskärs Maja / Stormskerry Maja / Myrskyluodon Maija (Tiina Lymi, FI 2024) DCP * Tennispalasi Isense, Helsinki

Zielona granica / Green Border (Agnieszka Holland, PL 2023) DCP * UGC Danton, Paris

Anatomie d'une chute / Anatomy of a Fall / Putoamisen anatomia (Justine Triet, FR 2023) DCP * MK2 Odéon Côté St Michel, Paris

May December (Todd Haynes, US 2023) MK2 Parnasse, Paris

Das Lehrerzimmer / The Teachers' Lounge / Opettajainhuone (Ilker Çatak, DE 2023) UGC Odéon, Paris

Benediction / Les Carnets de Siegfried (Terence Davies, GB 2021) UGC Danton, Paris

Nome (Sana Na N'Hada, Guinea-Bissau 2023) DCP released by The Dark, Reflet Médicis, Paris

Cerrar los ojos / Close Your Eyes (Víctor Erice, ES 2023) DCP * Midnight Sun Film Festival, Sodankylä

Celluloid Underground (Ehsan Khoshbakht, GB 2023) DCP * Midnight Sun Film Festival, Sodankylä

Henry Fonda for President (Alexander Horwath, AT 2024) DCP * Midnight Sun Film Festival, Sodankylä

Epäonnistunut tyhjyys / Failed Emptiness (Mika Taanila, FI 2024) DCP * Midnight Sun Film Festival, Sodankylä

Dâne-ye anjîr-e ma'âbed / The Seed of the Sacred Fig / Pyhän temppeliviikunan siemen (Mohammad Rasoulof, DE/FR/IR 2024) DCP * Telluride Film Festival

Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross, US 2024) DCP * Telluride Film Festival

Apocalipse nos Trópicos / Apocalypse in the Tropics (Petra Costa, BR 2024) DCP * Telluride Film Festival

No Other Land (Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Hamdan Ballal, Rachel Szor, Palestine/NO 2024) DCP * Telluride Film Festival

The White House Effect (Bonni Cohen, Jon Shenk, Pedro Kos, US 2024) DCP * Telluride Film Festival

Santosh (Sandhya Suri, GB/DE/FR 2024) DCP * Telluride Film Festival

Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola, US 2024) DCP * Helsinki International Film Festival

Sex (Dag Johan Haugerud, NO 2024) DCP * Helsinki International Film Festival

Io capitano (Matteo Garrone, IT/BE/FR 2024) DCP * Helsinki International Film Festival

Ernest Cole: Lost and Found (Raoul Peck, FR/US 2024) DCP * Helsinki International Film Festival

Miki - tätä et minusta vielä tiennyt (Minna Reiche, FI 2024) DCP * Helsinki International Film Festival

Tab / Walk Up (Hong Sang-soo, KO 2022) DCP * Helsinki International Film Festival

Nevydymyi batalyon / Invisible Battalion (Iryna Tsilyk, Svitlana lischynska, Alina Gorlova, UA 2017) Ukrainian Film Days, Helsinki

Songs of Slow Burning Earth (Olha Zhurba, UA 2024) Ukrainian Film Days, Helsinki

Bad Faith: Christian Nationalism’s Unholy War on Democracy (Christopher Jacob Jones, Stephen Ujlaki, US 2024) Night Visions, Helsinki

Shadowland (Otso Tiainen, FI 2024) Night Visions, Helsinki

Heijastus metsästä / A Reflection of the Forest (Eija-Liisa Ahtila, FI 2024) 8-channel video installation loop on a 27 meter screen at Serlachius Manor, Mänttä

My Name Is Hope (Sherwan Haji, FI 2025) Aalto ELO Film School screening, Lasipalatsi Bio Rex, Helsinki

II OLD

Yoru no kawa / Undercurrent (Kozabura Yoshimura, JP 1956) 2022 restoration by Kadokawa * DCP released by Carlotta Films * Filmothèque du Quartier Latin, Paris

Devil's Doorway / Paholaisen portti (Anthony Mann, US 1949) 35 mm * La Cinémathèque française

The Furies / Raivotar (Anthony Mann, US 1949) 35 mm * La Cinémathèque française

The Tall Target (Anthony Mann, US 1951) 35 mm * La Cinémathèque française

Border Incident / Kuoleman raja (Anthony Mann, US 1949) 35 mm * La Cinémathèque française

The Fall of the Roman Empire / Rooman valtakunnan tuho (Anthony Mann, US 1963) the 185 min roadshow version * DCP * 2011 digital transfer * La Cinémathèque française

El Cid (Anthony Mann, US/IT 1960) 35 mm * 187 min * 1993 restoration * Institut Lumière print * La Cinémathèque française

Atash-esabz / La Flamme verte (Mohammad Reza Aslani, IR 2008) DCP * Carlotta Films release * Reflet Médicis, Paris

He Walked by Night / Hän kulkee öisin (Alfred L. Werker, US 1948) 35 mm * restored by UCLA Film & Television Archive * La Cinémathèque française

Cimarron (Anthony Mann, US 1960) 35 mm * 147 min version * La Cinémathèque française

Reign of Terror / Yllämme giljotiini (Anthony Mann, US 1949) 35 mm * La Cinémathèque française

Napoléon vu par Abel Gance - première partie: Bonaparte (Abel Gance, FR 1927) 2024 digital restoration by La Cinémathèque française * French intertitles * DCP * Il Cinema Ritrovato, Cinema Modernissimo, Bologna * for the first time with French intertitles

Khak-e sar bé mohr / The Sealed Soil (Marba Nabili, IR 1977) 2024 restoration by UCLA Film & Television Archive * DCP * Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna, Cinema Jolly

Sarah Maldoror Trilogy (FR/CV 1979) 2024 restoration by CNC * DCP * Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna, Cinema Jolly

Entezar / Waiting (Amir Naderi, IR 1974) 2024 restoration by Kanoon * DCP * Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna, Cinema Jolly

Camp de Thiaroye / The Camp at Thiaroye (Ousmane Sembène, SN/DZ/TN 1988) 2024 restoration by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project * DCP * Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna, Cinema Jolly

The Snake Pit / Käärmeenpesä (Anatole Litvak, US 1948) 35 mm print from BFI National Archive * Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna, Cinema Jolly

Onna no saka / A Woman's Uphill Slope (Kozaburo Yoshimura, JP 1960) 35 mm print from Japan Foundation * Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna, Cinema Jolly

La Nouba des femmes du Mont Chenoua / Nwbat nisa Jabal Shanwat / The Nubah of the Women of Mount Chenoua (Assia Djebar, DZ 1978) 2024 restoration The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project * Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna, Cinema Jolly

Sorry, Wrong Number (Anatole Litvak, US 1948) 35 mm print from Academy Film Archive * Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna, Cinema Jolly

Al-leil / The Night (Mohammad Malas, SR 1992) 35 mm print from Trigon Film * Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna, Cinema Arlecchino

The T.A.M.I. Show (Steve Binder, US 1964) YouTube * for the first time I see a quasi complete presentation of the landmark pop / rock / soul / R&B concert record

D. W. Griffith: The Biograph shorts of 1908 in new 2024 digital restorations by the Film Preservation Society * DCP * Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone * immeasurably superior to the dismal 1997 screenings of The Griffith Project

Ikkinchi xotin / The Second Wife (Mikhail Doronin, SU-UZ 1927) DCP National Film Fund of Uzbekistan (Tashkent) * Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone

Vanina (Arthur von Gerlach, DE 1922) 2024 restoration Cinémathèque royale de Belgique / Filmmuseum München / Det Danske Filminstitut * DCP * Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone

Raskolnikow (Robert Wiene, DE 1923) 2024 restoration Filmmuseum München * DCP * Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone

Grossstadtschmetterling (Richard Eichberg, DE/GB 1929) 2024 restoration Deutsches Filminstitut * Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, Pordenone

Die Büchse der Pandora / Pandora's Box (G. W. Pabst, DE 1929) 2024 blu-ray The Criterion Collection and 2024 blu-ray Eureka! The Masters of Cinema Series * I see Martin Koerber's 2009 restoration for the first time, at 19 fps (Criterion) and at 20 fps (Eureka!) * the smoothness of the edit and the transitions change the experience significantly

La Grande Illusion / The Grand Illusion (Jean Renoir, FR 1937) Studio Canal blu-ray 2021 * I see the 1992 Toulouse / AFF-CNC reconstruction and its 2011 digital restoration for the first time

Gaslight (1944) and Gaslight (1940) * Warner Archive Collection blu-ray 2019 * I see Thorold Dickinson's Gaslight for the first time * Robin Wood's classic comparison of the two adaptations is even more impressive having viewed the films back to back

Le notti di Cabiria / The Nights of Cabiria (Federico Fellini, IT 1957) Studio Canal blu-ray 2021 * I see for the first time the uncut film integral with the "man with the sack", arguably the greatest sequence in the Fellini oeuvre

    THE GREATEST RETROSPECTIVES, both firsts for me: Anthony Mann (Jean-François Rauger / La Cinémathèque française) and Anatole Litvak (Ehsan Khoshbakht / Il Cinema Ritrovato).

III BOOKS

     Finnish:

Jukka Rislakki: Tiedustelu ja vakoilu [Intelligence and Espionage] (2024)

Marjaliisa Hentilä & Seppo Hentilä: Oikeusvaltion etuvartiossa: Ester ja Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg 1925-1952 [In the Frontline of the Rule of Law: Ester and Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg 1925-1952] (2024)

    International:

Anna Reid: A Nasty Little War: The West's Fight to Reverse the Russian Revolution (2023)

Steve Coll: The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the United States and the Middle East, 1979-2003 (2024)

Yuval Noah Harari: Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI (2024)

Edwin Frank: Stranger Than Fiction: Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel (2024)

IV EXHIBITIONS

Van Gogh: the Last Months: Van Gogh à Auvers-sur-Oise: Les derniers mois (Musée d'Orsay) Paris

Mark Rothko (Fondation Louis Vuitton) Paris

Surrealism 100 Years: International (Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique) Brussels

Surrealism 100 Years: Belgique (Bozar) Brussels

Impressionism 150 Years: Paris 1874 Inventer l'impressionnisme (Musée d'Orsay) Paris

Impressionism 150 Years: Monet and London. Views of the Thames (The Courtauld Gallery) London

    THE CURSE AT EXHIBITIONS: the by far brightest shining thing at exhibitions today is the sea of mobile phones of people photographing, in the process preventing others from truly seeing. The dominant thing now is the mobile devices, not the art. I now visit exhibitions less frequently and consider no longer visiting them at all.

V THE SPEECH OF THE YEAR

Judith Godrèche: "I speak, I speak, but you are not listening" (2024 César Awards)

The Brighton Strangler + extended intro by curator Ehsan Khoshbakht

 

Max Nosseck: The Brighton Strangler (US 1945) with John Loder (Reginald Parker / Edward Grey) and June Duprez (April Manby Carson).

Brightonin kuristaja (Yle Teema: Kino Kyöpeli 17 Aug 2007).

    US 1945. PC: RKO Radio Pictures. EX: Sid Rogell. P: Herman Schlom.

    D: Max Nosseck. Ass D: Lloyd Richards. SC: Arnold Phillips, Max Nosseck. Add dialogue: Hugh Gray. DP: J. Roy Hunt. AD: Albert S. D'Agostino, Ralph Berger. Set dec: Darrell Silvera, Harley Miller. Gowns: Renié. SFX: Vernon L. Walker. M: Leigh Harline. Music D: C. Bakaleinikoff. Recorder: Roy Meadows. Re-recorder: James G. Stewart. ED: Les Millbrook. Montage: Harold Palmer.

    C: John Loder (Reginald Parker/"Edward Gray"), June Duprez (April Manby), Michael St Angel (Bob Carson), Miles Mander (Chief Inspector W. R. Allison), Rose Hobart (Dorothy Kent), Gilbert Emery (Dr. Manby), Rex Evans (Shelton), Matthew Boulton (Inspector Graham), Olaf Hytten (Banks), Lydia Bilbrook (Mrs Manby), Ian Wolfe (Brandon R. Clive, the mayor). Uncredited: Gavin Muir (officer).

    68 min

    Certificate 12A

    A  35 mm print from BFI National Archive.

    BFI Southbank: Projecting the Archive.

    Extended intro by curator Ehsan Khoshbakht.

    Viewed at NFT2, London, 16 Dec 2024

BFI Southbank capsule intro: "A Christmas thriller with a murderous twist in which a theatre star with amnesia believes himself to be a serial killer."

"When a theatre is bombed in wartime London, a famous actor loses his memory and assumes the personality of the character he’s been playing on stage: The Brighton Strangler."

"British expat stars John Loder and June Duprez bring authenticity to their roles – much needed to counterbalance the Hollywood depiction of Britain’s south coast. Director Max Nosseck was a colourful character, best-known for making low-budget crime dramas across different countries, of which this is a deliciously melodramatic example. Taking place over the theatre’s Christmas closure, this RKO B-movie makes a perfect alternative seasonal offering." BFI Southbank

...

AA: This screening of Max Nosseck's The Brighton Strangler (US 1945) was special thanks to an inspired introduction by Ehsan Khoshbakht, which amounted to no less than a rehabilitation and claim of auteur status for Max Nosseck. 

In a witty resume and an illuminating clipreel Khosbakht tracked continuities and disparities on the Nosseck oeuvre from Weimar Germany through 1930s Portugal, France, Spain and the Netherlands, 1940s USA from the East Coast (Astoria studios) to the West Coast (Hollywood), and back to post-war Germany and Austria.

Nosseck filmed in many languages and pursued a wide array of genres, from comedy to crime and "from Judaism to nudism" (E.K.). The Yiddish-language Overture to Glory (US 1940) was a distinguished achievement in the lineage of Das alte Gesetz and The Jazz Singer. The Garden of Eden (US 1954), produced with the approval of the American Sunbathing Association, was, contrary to expectations, not a piece of sensationalist exploitation. 

Nosseck directed masters of comedy such as Curt Bois (Der Schlemihl, DE 1931) and Buster Keaton (Le Roi des Champs-Élysées, FR 1935). He was even happy to film horses (Black Beauty, US 1946) and dogs (The Return of Rin Tin Tin, US 1947). 

The year 1945 was a high point. Nosseck directed two strong films noir, besides The Brighton Strangler also Dillinger, in which Lawrence Tierney received his breakthrough as an actor and Philip Yordan got an Academy Award nomination for best original screenplay. 

All through his hectic career Nosseck usually worked in B-movie circumstances, but he always pursued creative control and often co-wrote his films. He was interested in the interplay of performance and life itself. He was fascinated by shattered minds and psychic disorders. A continuing feature regardless of genre are psychedelic inserts, nightmares and dream scenes with ominous superimpositions. (End of my freely edited notes from Ehsan Khoshbakht's introduction).

...

Like the director Max Nosseck, his movie The Brighton Strangler, co-written by him, is eminently worthy of rehabilitation. Nosseck takes full advantage of a brilliant team of RKO professionals, familiar from other RKO films noir, but also Citizen Kane, Hitchcock and Lewton. J. Roy Hunt, Albert S. D'Agostino, Vernon L. Walker and Leigh Harline know what they are doing.

What Nosseck brings to the mix most of all is an urgent sense of psychic turmoil. The storyline with its affinities with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Weimar classics including Der Andere, Der Student von Prag and Orlacs Hände, is familiar, but in the year 1945 it gained fresh and acute power.

Film noir is hard to define, but The Brighton Strangler in my opinion belongs to its hard core. It could even represent the entire phenomenon.

Rudolf Kurtz said to Lotte H. Eisner: "For me, Expressionism is not an artistic genre, but the expression of a world crisis". My reception of film noir is similar. Anton Kaes interpreted Weimar cinema as shell shock cinema. The same can be said about film noir - to a second degree. Adorno wrote that "writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric". For me, film noir is poetry after Auschwitz.

Shell shock is the premise of The Brighton Strangler. The actor Reginald Parker becomes a victim of a Luftwaffe Blitz in London. He loses his memory and identity. Imagination becomes reality, and Parker turns into the character of his play - Edward Gray, the Brighton Strangler. He starts to commit murders following the script. Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari is also evoked in Parker's somnambulistic agenda. The allegory is the same: ordinary people turn into spellbound serial killers.

From a familiar starting-point Nosseck keeps creating something unusual until the very end which offers us a final big surprise.

It was particularly moving to watch this film in London. The cinema was packed, and I could feel that many in the audience had family histories relevant to this strange tale from the days of the Battle of Britain.

Great visual quality in BFI's 35 mm print.

Eija-Liisa Ahtila: Heijastus metsästä / A Reflection of the Forest (vernissage in the presence of Eija-Liisa Ahtila and Ilppo Pohjola)

Eija-Liisa Ahtila: Heijastus metsästä / Reflection of the Forest (FI 2024). From: Gösta Serlachius Fine Arts Foundation. Photographer: Sampo Linkoneva, Serlachius. Please do click on the image to expand it to the max.

Eija-Liisa Ahtila: Heijastus metsästä / Reflection of the Forest (FI 2024). From: Gösta Serlachius Fine Arts Foundation. Cubism is back.

Eija-Liisa Ahtila: Heijastus metsästä / Reflection of the Forest.

    14 Dec 2024 - 27 April 2025 Serlachius Kartano / Serlachius Manor, Joenniementie 47, 35800 Mänttä. Screenings start at 11.30, 12.30, 13.30, 14.30, 15.30 and 16.30.

    A 8-channel video installation loop with a changing number of projections. The number and size of projected images (1-8) will vary to reflect the theme of each scene and the material contained in it.

    Written and directed by Eija-Liisa Ahtila.

    FI 2024 © Crystal Eye – Kristallisilmä Oy. P: Ilppo Pohjola

    Cin: Antti Ruusuvuori, Pekka Uotila - 8 x 4K UHD 16:9. Colorist: Pentti Keskimäki. Image post production by Jari Hakala. PD: Tiina Paavilainen. Cost: Johanna Vainio. ED: Heikki Kotsalo. S: Olli Pärnänen - audio 8.0.

    C: Eetu Ahtila, Nora Dadu, Sue Lemström, Mitra Matouf. Voice over: Laura Birn, Marika Parkkomäki, Aije Zhou.

    Original languages: English, Chinese, Finnish and Swedish with English and Finnish subtitles.

    50 min

    Introduced by Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Ilppo Pohjola and Pauli Sivonen.

    Viewed at the vernissage on a 27 meter screen at Serlachius Manor, 13 Dec 2024.

Serlachius Manor introduction: "Reflection of a Forest is a commission for Gösta Serlachius Fine Arts Foundation."

"Eija-Liisa Ahtila’s third commissioned work for Serlachius is “Reflection of a Forest,” an eight-channel installation with the forest playing a central role. Ahtila continues to challenge the narrative of moving images and the human-centric perspective. She seeks ways of representation and expression that can create a more balanced picture of the living reality of our planet."

"Ahtila and her team have filmed the work over three years in various parts of Southern Finland. The piece does not have a traditional narrative but rather events and situations. Its central theme is the spatiality of the forest: how diverse life intertwines in the forest space and forms a connection of existence. The work features various living beings and their fictional thoughts and speech."

"The state of emergency in the environment affects our choices, ways of thinking and perceiving, as well as the role of culture and art in society. The starting point of the work is the shared spatial existence of different living beings – life maintained together."

"Eija-Liisa Ahtila (b. 1959) is internationally Finland’s most renowned contemporary artist. She is known as a pioneer of video art, focusing on works that move in the border line between film and video art. She has uniquely understood the possibilities of moving images as an artistic medium. At the same time, she has continuously produced installations, drawings, photographs, and spatial art."

"Ahtila’s works have been exhibited in internationally significant museums such as MoMA in New York, Tate Modern in London, Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, and Jeu de Paume in Paris. Her works have also been displayed at major contemporary art festivals, including the Venice, Sydney, and São Paulo Biennales and Documenta in Kassel."

"For Serlachius, she has previously created the commissions “Studies on the Ecology of Drama” (2014) and “Potentiality of Love” (2018). These works have later been exhibited around the world."

"Eija-Liisa Ahtila has received numerous recognitions for her work as an artist. In 2009, she was named an academician of art at the age of just 49. She has been awarded, among others, as Commander, First Class, of the Order of the White Rose of Finland in 2020, the Pro Finlandia Medal in 2005, the Artes Mundi Prize in 2006 and Vincent Van Gogh Award for Contemporary Art in Europe in 2000, and Honorary Mention, 48th Venice Biennale, Italy in 1999."

"She has also received several film awards, and has been a Golden Lion jury member at Venice International Film Festival in 2011. She has also received The Honorary Doctorate of Media Arts  from Ionian University, Greece in 2019, and from Aalto University of Applied Arts, Finland in 2018."

AA: Eija-Liisa Ahtila's A Reflection of the Forest invites us into a space of contemplation, but it is so intense that time flies by like in an action film.

The theme of the forest has been covered in recent high profile Finnish non-fiction films. Tale of a Forest (FI 2012, D: Ville Suhonen & Kim Saarniluoto, Cin: Teemu Liakka, Mikko Pöllänen, Hannu Siitonen, P: Marko Röhr) grew into one of the most popular Finnish non-fiction films of all time. Once Upon a Time in a Forest (FI 2024, D: Virpi Suutari) focuses on Extinction Rebellion.

Eija-Liisa Ahtila pursues a long-term ecological quest of her own.

Studies in the Ecology of Drama (FI 2014) was a four screen panorama at 360°. To see everything the viewer had to be constantly on the move. The work pursued the insight of The Annunciation (2010): Jacob von Uexküll's idea of all living beings in parallel realities. For instance the critical flicker frequency of the common swift is beyond human capability. A dog sees a movie as a cluster of still images. The resolution of time is different from humans.

In A Reflection of the Forest Ahtila's perspective widens beyond the animal to the vegetable world and to all living beings. For a moment I think about Lowell Dean's ecological horror movie Die Alone (CA 2024), in which the vegetable kingdom takes over, turning humans into flesh-eating zombies on our way to self-extinction. In contrast, Ahtila's vision is serene and benign.

Ahtila's ecological cycle opens new possibilities to a key concept of classical aesthetics: the sublime. During the transition from the 19th to the 20th century, the horror of industrial scale warfare shattered among other things the key tenets of classical aesthetics (the beautiful and the sublime). Old ideals proved false, hypocritical and destructive. Modern artists turned their backs to old parameters which of course survived in traditional and conventional work and popular media.

The sublime in the sense of Longinus, Burke and Kant means, as distinct from the beautiful, something overwhelming, awe-inspiring and transcending the limits of the ordinary.

In Ahtila's work we experience a new sublime in insights into the extraordinary senses of animals and visions of the time dimensions in the life of trees, impossible for humans to fathom but humoristically dramatized in Horizontal (FI 2011), a 6-channel projected installation of a magnificent life size spruce tree.

The eight channel video installation of A Reflection of the Forest provides novel experiences in split screen aesthetics. The screen explodes at times to 16 images. The result is a fresh and original entry in the art of montage. Intentionally or unintentionally, A Reflection of the Forest is a hommage to Abel Gance, the father of Polyvision, the triptych cinema. One of Gance's triple screen sequences transforms into a Polyvision tricolor in Napoléon vu par Abel Gance (FR 1927), a brilliant digital restoration of which was released this year by La Cinémathèque française. The epic is also a masterpiece of the avantgarde.

At Serlachius Manor, Polyvision is back in three parallel widescreen moving images, displaying not exploits of war but the stubborn power of life.