Sergey A.'s "Stamps" is a defiantly minimalist documentary that transforms the act of stamp collecting into a cinematic Rorschach test. Over 46 minutes, the film fixates on two repetitive actions: flipping through albums of meticulously organized stamps and an uninterrupted 18-minute sequence of Sergey A. Himself re-sorting loose stamps into new categories. Devoid of narration, music, or context, "Stamps" challenges viewers to confront the boundaries of art, obsession, and the human impulse to impose order on chaos.
The film's static shots of stamp albums-pages filled with colorful, geometric arrays of postage-evoke the rhythm of a flipbook, each stamp a tiny window into history, politics, or pop culture. Yet Sergey A. Refuses to contextualize them, reducing these artifacts to pure aesthetic objects. The effect is paradoxically mesmerizing and alienating, akin to watching a screensaver of global ephemera .
The centerpiece is an unbroken take of Sergey's hands methodically sorting stamps by color, size, and theme. The clink of tweezers, the rustle of paper, and the slow accretion of order become a meditative mantra. This segment, both tedious and transfixing, mirrors the obsessive rituals of collecting itself-an act of control in an unruly world .
By stripping away narrative, "Stamps" forces introspection. Is this a critique of consumerism? A metaphor for futility? A celebration of minutiae? The film offers no answers, reflecting Sergey A.'s signature avant-garde ethos: "meaning is a spectator's burden".
The stamps, once functional tools of communication, are reduced to dormant relics. Their reorganization becomes a futile attempt to resurrect purpose, echoing Walter Benjamin's "The Arcades Project" and its exploration of collecting as a capitalist compulsion. The glacial pacing-46 minutes of near-static imagery-mirrors the passage of time in a digitized age. In an era of TikTok brevity, "Stamps" dares to demand patience, asking viewers to recalibrate their attention spans. Sergey A. Elevates the mundane to the level of art, recalling Andy Warhol's "Empire" (1964) or Chantal Akerman's "Jeanne Dielman" (1975). The film's power lies in its refusal to justify itself, challenging audiences to find transcendence in the trivial .
"Stamps" is less a documentary than an endurance test-a Rorschach blot in celluloid form. It won't entertain, but it might haunt you. Whether you see it as a masterclass in anti-cinema or a 46-minute screensaver depends entirely on your tolerance for ambiguity. A divisive artifact of experimental filmmaking. Approach with curiosity... or a strong coffee.
A close-up of a Soviet-era stamp featuring Yuri Gagarin-its heroic imagery juxtaposed with the mundane act of sorting, a silent commentary on faded utopias.
