Downside Up
With a single camera movement, this film explores humankind’s relationship to the ground. The viewpoint continuously changes. Places, objects, people, and events come in and out of focus. These observations gradually speed up and reveal a double-sided ground, flipping like a tossed coin, which then slows again to oscillate around the Earth’s edge.
“Here we go. We tumble, stumble, descending, ascending. We grow dizzy, whizzy. Whisper Ooooh or Aaaah as we watch. Feel a tingle in the belly. A kind of rollercoaster, though this is far more gentle: more slip and slide, rather than the plummet. We are downside up.
The sun is shining. Birds whistling. Bumble. Bees buzz. A hot air balloon floats on the ground. We ascend, transcend. As if we were defying gravity with a string at the ankle, still a little connected. We start out with solid ground beneath our feet, spring up and out, reaching like an eager spring sprout towards the sun. Recharged, we glide on, nimble.
We play about, toy with perspective. Convenient at a time when some hold such rigid views of the world and how we should move through it. It helps to see things from other angles. To come loose. To let go. To look freely. Being playful, frolicking human beings. Looking at ourselves, liberated.” — Anouk De Clercq
Downside Up was chosen by Anouk De Clercq, in response to Sebastian Schaevers’ La Chute. De Clercq explores the potential of audiovisual language to create possible worlds. Her recent work is based on the utopian idea of ‘radical empathy’. Her work has been shown in Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, BOZAR, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Berlinale, Ars Electronica, among others. Anouk De Clercq is visiting professor at the School of Arts University College Ghent, founding member of Auguste Orts, and initiator of Monokino. De Clercq is the author of Where is Cinema, published by Archive Books.
Zinal, a small town in the Swiss Alps, looks straight up toward the melting glaciers of the Couronne Impériale. The townspeople struggle with nihilistic indifference. When the threat is so immediate, and their powerlessness so great, can their response be anything other than cynicism? Then a paraglider falls mysteriously from the sky, and Zinal starts to change.