Anemic Cinema

I am sort of a fan of the Dada artists, their kind of work, but after seeing 'Anémic Cinéma' I have come to the conclusion that me being a fan does not apply when it comes to the visual art forms. When it comes to visuals, paintings or films, I am able to like strange things before my eyes but not the Dada kind. I mean, I enjoy surrealism a lot including Buñuel's 'Un Chien Andalou' and paintings from Salvador Dalí.

In a way I enjoyed this piece of cinema from famous Dada artist Marcel Duschamp, but only because I knew what kind of man was behind it. What we get to see is a spiral design spinning before our eyes and a disc with French phrases on it, also spinning. Duschamp cuts between these two images although the kind of spiral design and the French text changes after every cut. Interesting? Yes, but that's about it.

A mesmeric seven minutes of avant-garde animation in which spiralling patterns alternate with nonsensical prose.

"Anemic Cinema" is a different sort of Dada film from the 1920's when compared to the work of the surrealists which later followed it. Instead of disturbing, dreamlike imagery which became the trademark of Luis Bunuel, or the creepy, uncomfortable world created by the Quay Brothers, the famous French artist Marcel Duchamp here goes more for the look of a moving painting rather than a film in the repetitive cycle this short follows. The effects of the moving discs called "Rotoreliefs" might question your use of drugs, and as a whole the film takes on the look of a flip-book.

Duchamp's film--not his only one as he apparently made several other versions of the Rotoreliefs after this--depicts many whirling spirals intercut with French text, apparently a series of puns that are incomprehensible if you don't know French. While it creates a good effect for a bunch of cardboard discs, the speed of them really isn't fast and doesn't go for a hypnotic effect like you might expect, and the entire thing seems a little too long like some segments could have been removed; it drags after a bit. Also, the amount of movement itself depends: some spirals create better visual effects than others, and at one point one of the least-moving ones stops entirely. Interesting and eye-catching, but little else.

Anemic Cinema (1926) is a short film consisting simply of spirals and text. This short is very avant-garde and leaves a lot to the audiences interpretation, but it was strangely hypnotic.

If you decide to watch this please watch it without sound as, in my opinion, the spirals create a rhythm of their own and I got a lot more out of my watch when the video was muted.

This film, even though incredibly simplistic, was interesting and felt quite progressive. It was definitely something I needed to delve into and do research after watching but I'm glad I did!

The use of text is intriguing, for example, the title itself is almost a palindrome which I found pretty cool. Also, the text spirals get slower as you read further in, i fell like there's meaning to this. The phrases written are almost child-like and read like a tongue twister, however some quite 'controversial' language is used which feels oxymoronic

For me, the spirals partly represent how film makes you FEEL, rather than the direct actions you watch on screen. The whole movie is a massive metaphor and definitely not for everyone, but it was certainly fun to look into!

And what to think of it I am not sure. Basically it is made up of interchanging rotating spirals and rotating discs with text written on them in French. The text is short and in doesn't add up to much. Except for various kinds of dizziness there is nothing else here than what you can theorize around it.

It is a piece of dada-art where things were put out of context and therefore gains a new meaning or get incomprehensible. One example is Duchamps signed urinal and like that it almost requires to be put in a gallery to get meaning from it.

It is photographed by the great visualist Man Ray, but you cant notice as it is fixed in the same position for the whole duration of the movie (6 minutes).