The Use of Movement

Overview

The Use of Movement considers the formal edges of the frame and the way in which camera movement, whether slight or dramatic, is ascribed with meaning. A series of tableaux are played out—with foreign language voice-overs providing the only real narrative context. A sleepless woman is haunted by images she has watched on the internet; a man drives an ice cream truck down a barren street; a couple ride a motorscooter in the twilight; steam rises from manhole covers. Each scene is an incomplete narrative—and the monologues in Spanish, German, Bengali, and Italian only serve to provide a degree of abstraction to the sound treatment—distancing most of us from the more visceral aspects of the film form and creating occasional dissonances with what’s happening visually.