Crudo
A dance on the edge of the volcano
A dark surface, with a lighter horizontal as the only
visual anchor; it is utterly quiet. Then, in a blood-stirring rhythm like
the beating of drum, two elegant black boots surmounted by white trouser
legs dance into the frame. The tempo of the dance is reinforced by the
rapid switching of shots: close-ups of boots, legs, the face and torso of
a man. Slim, wearing a close-cut, white suit, he dances in a hybrid
combination of tap and Latin American styles while holding in his hands
long cords terminating in pieces of raw meat: boleadores. In a swift
tempo, he swings these in wide circles, swirling them past each other.
Thus begins the film Crudo (Raw) by Miguel Angel
Rios; as the credits roll – some three minutes later – the viewer wonders
in amazement what he has actually just witnessed. Because after his
whirling entry, the dancer is suddenly surrounded by five aggressively
barking dogs. All at once, we observe the scene from his perspective:
their threatening, gaping jaws, filled with glistening white teeth, also
fill us with awe. They hesitate, simultaneously drawn and repelled by the
whirling boleadores of meat, until their hunger wins out; when one breaks
through the barrier, the rest follow. They turn, leap, snap and bark
around the dancer, creating a tense and dangerous situation as he is
subjected increasingly to real, physical menace.
The film’s high point is the
bizarre pas de deux with a dog that is, appropriately, as pale as death!
After it has raced onto the scene and seized the man’s sleeve, they
perform a circling dance together. Inescapably, this evolves into a matter
of wrestling against powerful bites. Nevertheless, the dancer seems to
barely defend himself; he proudly accepts the confrontations and looks
danger straight in the eye. He mocks and taunts with his fearless dance
and is superior. He must have enormous alertness and concentration to
maintain the time and rhythm while simultaneously coping with the dogs.
Crudo is a magnificent and
puzzling work of art that raises a host of existential questions about
life and death, power and powerlessness, good and evil, nature and
culture, human and animal, individual and group, control and chaos,
courage and fear. The
manner in which the scene is set makes one think of a stage without any
backdrop or props. There is no context, no narrative pointers; only
emptiness and darkness. This endows the film with a high degree of
concentration and abstraction. The scenario, the encounter between human
and animal, is artificial; the whys and wherefores of it remain
impenetrable. Despite that, the events enthral us in a surprising way.
Could this be because of the meticulousness and perfectionism that went
into the making of the film?
In some respects, Crudo reminds one of another
struggle between human and animal: bullfighting. In southern Europe and
South America, the bullfight is regarded not so much as a sport as a
mixture of art and dance. It expresses the superiority of the human
(especially the man) over the animal, resulting in the inevitable death of
the bull. (The dogs do not share this fate). Like a matador facing a bull,
the dancer in Crudo is the example of cultural refinement contrasted with
the instinctive, irrational nature of the dogs. He is the embodiment of
control faced by frenzied aggression. A symbol of his refinement is his
Armani suit, which remains immaculately white despite the leaping and
biting of the dogs and the bloody lumps of meat that skim so close. The
donning of these striking and easily soiled clothes in anticipation of
such an aggressive encounter is an ultimate display of daring.
What makes this
video such an exceptional experience is the ingenious way in which beauty
and violence are intertwined. We take pleasure in the controlled movements
and fast, stirring rhythm of the dancer, and in the fact that he overcomes
the dogs. The contrasts between light and dark have an impressively
picturesque and dramatic quality, but at the same time, we shudder at the
monstrous dogs that put the man into immediate physical danger with their
unpredictable aggression. Their penetrating barking torments the ear, it
strikes through to one’s bone and marrow; and who knows what other dangers
lurk in the surrounding darkness?
This thrill of horror is also a form of enjoyment,
generated by what is known in Western culture as ‘the sublime’. Unlike
beauty, which arouses a pleasant sensation, the sublime evokes feelings
such as fear, fright and dread. It awes, intimidates and makes us aware of
our smallness and our own physical vulnerability. But if we find ourselves
at a safe distance from the source of terror and so are not personally
exposed to it, we paradoxically experience a form of pleasure, of joyful
abhorrence, awe and even relief.
Miguel Angel Rios was born in
Catamarca (Argentina) and lives and works in Mexico City and New York.
From 2003 onwards, he made a number of poetic videos using tops that spin
in dark, undefined spaces. They turn and dance around each other,
sometimes skimming each other, sometimes colliding and then moving apart
again. The viewer easily projects human attributes onto the tops. Contact
and rejection, balance and imbalance, swaying and steadiness, swiftness
and slowness; brisk, lively and colliding or falling and dying; all these
associations are evoked by them.
In 2008, Rios made Crudo, a film with many
similarities to his previous work. All his films combine beauty and
violence as an indivisible whole. They also combine control and
coincidence. Although he can determine the stage management, the actors,
the use of lighting and the camera angles, Rios has no control over the
behaviour of the tops or the dogs. Their actions, movements and the length
of a scene are determined by chance. The films are simultaneously abstract
choreographies and reflections on the uncertainty and transience of human
existence.
Groningen, 17 May 2009
Ankie Boomstra
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