Radicalized
Short impressionistic anti-war film to accompany the music of the Opera of the Unspoken, an ancestral experimental opera about WWII in Indonesia, then the Dutch East Indies. This song reflects the fate of my civilian German grandfather, unfairly interned by the Dutch, then killed by radicals in East Java as he tried to find his way back to his Javanese wife and mixed race children after the war had ended. The lyrics reflect the chaos, confusion and danger of the time, with details patched together using psychic dreamwork. Archival war footage and a few family photos are edited with special effects into a rhythmic, dream-like reflection of the central poem, reminiscent of gum bichromate photography. A creative work to address ancestral trauma in our family dna.
Credits
- Directors
- Jeannette Schwager
Directors Statement
Combining music and intuition is at the heart of all that I do and this short film is no different. The imagery is a reflection of my creative process in uncovering a long hidden ancestral story about my paternal grandfather, using dreams plus historical and genealogical research. With the visual effects I reference my Dutch mother's love for gum bichromate photography, developing photos with paints and sunlight. The archival footage depicts the American pilots that helped free Europe from the Nazis. It was a time when all the members of my family were trapped by the conflict and senselessness of war on two continents at once.
runtime: 4 min