Routemaster - Theater of the Motor

35mm, color, sound, 17 min
scans not available
Available in 35mm. ROUTEMASTER - THEATER OF THE MOTOR consists of strobe-like, fast-flickering shots, and grainy, monochrome images of speeding rally cars. While Phjola's ASPHALTO was still concerned ...
Rental formats: 16mm, 35mm

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Available in 35mm. ROUTEMASTER - THEATER OF THE MOTOR consists of strobe-like, fast-flickering shots, and grainy, monochrome images of speeding rally cars. While Phjola's ASPHALTO was still concerned with human interactions, here the absence of humanity is total (only cadavers at the end signify that there has been life, of some sort): what remains are the machines in movement that is an end in itself. The rhythmic structure is provided by slow-motion, close-up shots of checkered flags, repeated at regular, mathematical intervals, with passing shades of blue proving almost the only color in the film. Shaky, hand-held cameras and split screens are used, with occasionally mosaics and repetitions of the checkered flag theme. At times, the accelerating speed of the images makes it painful to watch the film, like a sort of visual Blitzkrieg waged on the human nervous system through the viewer's tortured retinas. The whole watching experience becomes increasingly fragmented.