1228 – Chad VanGaalen

“TARBOZ was planned as the first episode of “Translated Log of Inhabitants”, and was an experiment to see if i could make a long-form improvised animation and still get out alive. I barely did!

The “Translated Log of Inhabitants” was conceived as a guide to the origin story of many different species. I imagined myself doing dozens of these episodes, focusing on a new life form very time — very much like a page from “Barlowe’s Guide to Extraterrestrials“. It expands a universe that I had already been developing in my own music videos, as well as ones for other bands. The videos for “Peace on the Rise” as well as ones for Black Mountain and Shabazz Palaces all exist in the same world (at least in my head).

TARBOZ is stream of consciousness, dreams and friends. Alternate versions of my own reality. Coming to terms with the fact that I will never play freestyle disc professionally, but wanting to pay homage to the peaceful energy of that sport. It also reflects my needing to score a sci-fi film so badly that I ended up making my own.

I TARBOZed myself for 2 years, through software transitions and computer wastelands, and slowly the physical realm slipped away. I learned a lot about why you should get into something with a clear idea in mind. I would never make another animation in quite the same the way I made this again. After two years of working on it in solitude I just wanted my life back. Doing it alone was my biggest mistake. I was very lonely.

It didn’t really end up like any of these things, but I hope this might help people understand the spirt of the piece. Although I’m not sure i understand it entirely myself. Sometimes you need to just do it in order to know how to not to do it?”

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1227 – GREEN HELL IS THE NEW HEAVEN (2012 documentary)

GREEN HELL IS THE NEW HEAVEN Timisoara city in the Anthropocene Remastered version of the 2012 movie about the Ailanthus tree also known as the Tree Of Heaven in a loud and overheated Timisoara. A project for Waiting Spaces #1 http://waiting-spaces.simultan.org/

1216 – Sanatorium pod Klepsydra / The Hourglass Sanatorium (1973)

Among all the tales there is one, / which you haven’t heard / and which the night reclaimed long ago. / Have you enough patience to listen to it?

The Hourglass Sanatorium (Polish: Sanatorium pod klepsydrą) is a 1973 Polish film directed by Wojciech Jerzy Has, starring Jan Nowicki, Tadeusz Kondrat, Mieczysław Voit, Halina Kowalska and Gustaw Holoubek. The story follows a young Jewish man who visits his father in a mystical sanatorium where time does not behave normally. The film is an adaptation of Bruno Schulz‘s story collection Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass. It won the Jury Prize at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival. (Release)

timespace coordinates: The time period of the film is a mixture of elements from the turn-of-the-century Galicia where Schulz grew up, and Has‘ own pre-World War II memories of the same region

Joseph (Jan Nowicki) travels through a dream-like world, taking a dilapidated train to visit his dying father, Jacob, in a sanatorium. When he arrives at the hospital, he finds the entire facility is going to ruin and no one seems to be in charge or even caring for the patients. Time appears to behave in unpredictable ways, reanimating the past in an elaborate artificial caprice.

Though Joseph is always shown as an adult, his behavior and the people around often depict him as a child. He befriends Rudolf, a young boy who owns a postage stamp album. The names of the stamps trigger a wealth of association and adventure in Joseph. Among the many occurrences in this visually potent phantasmagoria include Joseph re-entering childhood episodes with his wildly eccentric father (who lives with birds in an attic), being arrested by a mysterious unit of soldiers for having a dream that was severely criticized in high places, reflecting on a girl he fantasized about in his boyhood and commandeering a group of historic wax mannequins. Throughout his strange journey, an ominous blind train conductor reappears like a death figure.

Has also adds a series of reflections on the Holocaust that were not present in the original texts, reading Schulz’s prose through the prism of the author’s death during World War II and the demise of the world he described. (wiki)

imdb

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“There are things than cannot ever occur with any precision. They are too big and too magnificent to be contained in mere facts. They are merely trying to occur, they are checking whether the ground of reality can carry them. And they quickly withdraw, fearing to loose their integrity in the frailty of realization. ”  (Bruno Schulz)

1201 – Alita: Battle Angel (2019)

timespace coordinates: equatorial South America – Iron City – 2563, 300 years after Earth is devastated by a catastrophic interplanetary war known as “The Fall”

Alita: Battle Angel is a 2019 American cyberpunk science fiction action film based on the 1990s Japanese manga series Gunnm (known as Battle Angel Alita in the English translation) by Yukito Kishiro. Directed by Robert Rodriguez, the film is co-produced by James Cameron and written by Cameron and Laeta Kalogridis. Rosa Salazar stars as the titular heroine Alita, an amnesiac cyborg girl who sets out to learn about her destiny after she awakens in a new body with no past memory of who she is. Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Connelly, Mahershala Ali, Ed Skrein, Jackie Earle Haley and Keean Johnson also star in supporting roles. \scored by Junkie XL\ (wiki)

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The post-apocalyptic architecture in sci-fi blockbuster Alita: Battle Angel is a diverse fusion of Panama’s vibrant ruins and Hong Kong’s Kowloon Walled City, say its creators. (dezeen)

City of Imagination: Kowloon Walled City 20 Years Later

1162 – Abendland (2011)

timespace coordinates: Europe at night (2008 – 2010)

Abendland is a 2011 observational documentary film by Nikolaus Geyrhalter. The documentary, which has only scenes at night, explores European obsession with technology and security. Manohla Dargis of The New York Times called Abendland a “visually precise and politically amorphous” portrait of an imagined community: “The overall impression is a vision of Europe as a mosaic, as an artful amalgam of perfectly framed, seemingly disconnected moments during a long shared night, give or take a time zone change or two.” (wiki)

ABENDLAND Trailer

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imdb   /   review

1160 – Miracle Mile (1988)

timespace coordinates: 1980’s LA (Johnie’s Coffee Shop; La Brea Tar Pits; Miracle Mile District; Pan-Pacific Auditorium in the Fairfax District)

Miracle Mile is a 1988 American apocalyptic thriller film written and directed by Steve De Jarnatt, and starring Anthony Edwards and Mare Winningham. The film takes place mostly in real time. It is named after the Miracle Mile neighborhood of Los Angeles, where most of the action takes place. (wiki)

(trivia) The real life Johnie’s Coffee Shop, actually located on the Miracle Mile neighborhood of Los Angeles, ceased functioning as a real restaurant in the late 1990s. However, the building was never demolished, continued to be used from many other films and was designated a historical landmark in 2013. It is now rented primarily for film and television productions as well as for pop-up shops and similar temporary functions. The building again gained notoriety in 2016 as a campaign headquarter for US presidential candiante Bernie Sanders.

imdb

1158 – Juan of the Dead / Juan de los muertos (2011)

timespace coordinates: 2000’s Cuba

Juan of the Dead (Spanish: Juan de los Muertos) is a 2010 zombie comedy film written and directed by Alejandro Brugués. A Spanish-Cuban co-production between La Zanfoña Producciones (Spain) and Producciones de la 5ta Avenida (Cuba) involving the participation of the ICAIC, Canal Sur and Televisión Española, the film won the Goya Award for Best Spanish Language Foreign Film in 2012. (wiki)

A group of slackers face an army of zombies. The Cuban government and media claim the living dead are dissidents revolting against the government. (imdb)