When the existence of an abstract body built on the skin defined by dictionaries shares the same vital cell with its host, Ann Oren’s “Piaffe” (2022) opens many doors for concrete dreams, while hypnagogic images proceed in the manner of an intervention of a “chance of a surrealist order”. Throughout the film, we breathe with the sensory reality trapped inside a body. So much so that the sensuality of changing form does not leave such a heavy weight on our shoulders as it would on a body. This is, we may say, a mental reality that coexists with sensibility. The script’s most inventive passages are the meticulously choreographed situations where the protagonists come together in various dramatic encounters. There is a paradoxical impression of overly conscious desires and sexuality, so if the viewers follow the theories of psychology as an approach, the act of observing the characters, objects and environments of the movie, can even conjure up some contradictory emotions.
I Awaken with The Death of My Existence
The dry wetness of the body dances with its new form of existence, while it is ready to face the light, which looks like a small uneasiness that arises in an invisible part of the skin with an invisible wound, but is desired as much as it is “deserved”. Following the script of the movie, each of the characters evokes another object in themselves, containing movements or sounds that are impossible to achieve with static media such as pencil, canvas or paper, which all are vectors of erotic tension. The character played by Simone Bucio puts the weight of the invisible existence of the voice on the body, in a sense as a representative, hence the complete disappearance in question. Thus, the sound of silence remains, which gives an idea about the psychological dramas underlying the images of the objects and their descriptions in the film.
A Different Voice
Behind the absence of environmental sound controls and the inability of the ears to identify the personality of the sound, the presence of another voice emerges with the body’s reaction, and this closes the door on all other sounds that emerge. In a surrealistic-experimental line, the loss of the sound and the rust of the ears are erased with the hooves that the body makes in silence. Through a fully visual scenario, Piaffe reaches the sound it seeks by destroying its own body. Ann Oren and Thais Guisasola‘s script intertwines change and death. Embracing the modern tradition of transformation, the film melts reality and illusion into the shadows, following a picture that is not too close to the instrumental view of the camera. It is also possible to come across image divisions in Piaffe, where narcissism elements are also present. In this way, while one part of the body completes its development, the other becomes opaque, resulting in a visual of bodily trauma. Since the loving capacity of the new image of the body -which can be called the dark continent- is high, it also reflects its energy while being exposed to the sound.
Supersonic Pressure
In addition to experimenting with the body, what Oren wants to establish is a reference to the nature of occupancy as a component of the body as we know it. In this way, the goal is not to explore the limits of the concepts in the film, but to compete with them on our own. This camouflages the rejection of self-illusion and the reduction of certainty (Genauigkeit) to a simple ideal: in short, everything that is designated as an accessory (Nebensächliche), every one of the sensory organs. While this creates a kind of blindness, it can also offer different perspectives. In a sense, the disappearance of an ordinary sound and the fact that there is no limit to all the stages in which the body will sacrifice itself in finding its essence, provocatively create an intellectual hollow. While the film maintains its commitment to the movement from which it takes its name from beginning to end, it does not compromise on the visual expression of the same movement. Piaffe speaks for what belongs to her, not only for the outer but also for the inner, by taking her power from the absolute reality of the truth.
