'The Angels Fell' by Aganovich
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Starring Daisy Lowe and Serbo-Danish actor Momir Subotic, Aganovich’s film for Political Fashion explores ideas of domestic violence and the ever-volatile politics of the sexes.
11 comments
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beckyc
11:15 10 Apr 2008
This haunting, surrealistic rendering of a beautiful woman's strength in the face of domestic violence will stay with me for a long, long time. The pearls...and those glass 'teardrops' that start the film---reminiscient of Louise Bourgeois' 'tears' in her 'cells' currently on display at the Pompedieu---These images are the stuff of dreams...and nightmares! The music is perfect, as well!
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AlicePrin
16:46 10 Apr 2008
I am an admirer of Aganovich’s work but in this case I’m critical of the over aesthetisation of violence and suffering in this ‘beautiful’ video.
'Beautification of tragedy results in pictures that ultimately reinforce our passivity toward the experience they reveal…Beauty is a call to admiration not to action' Ingrid Sishy
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marko
08:20 11 Apr 2008
Very subtle...man punches women, then she spits pearls...wow this really challenges my assumptions about gender. I think most people already know that men attack women and visa versa. I have met women who have been the subject of brutal domestic violence and this film is a bit of an insult to them really.
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doir
12:23 13 Apr 2008
It actually scared me to almost death- I don't like the suject.
But I found the direction & artistic thoughts,techie stuff. totally cool.
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BrookeTaylor
11:25 16 Apr 2008
Hi Alice.
Having referred to you in Jez’s forum I thought I should validate your comments with a response, particularly as I agree with your perspective.
My intention in this film was to address two issues I’ve encountered in my own life. Firstly that those friends of mine from heavily damaged backgrounds (paedophiliac, domestic, wartorn) are often curiously meticulous about their appearance sometimes to the point of dysfunction. Secondly that when men beat women they are often voicing a frustration at their inability to control that woman. The woman, in her long term defense, ends up exhibiting qualities that we would normally associate with luxury goods. She will make a place inside herself that is cold, distant, unattainable and deeply, if not unilaterally, exclusive. You could easily use these words to describe the new Rolls Royce or a diamond Cartier necklace.
To try and show this dynamic in a quick fix format I wanted to juxtapose the visceral and the luxurious. Each punch would produce not its expected bodily ingredient but a luxury goods replacement. Pearls for teeth, red silk for blood, sapphires for bruising. The man literally builds the walls of his own exclusion with his bare hands.
We didn’t succeed. We had to roll with the equipment available and had not a penny for post-prod (and frankly got seriously out-vomitted by Millie in Jez’s film). So eventually settled for something ultimately, and slightly uncomfortably, ‘poetic’.
Finally, I should add, I’m not drawing from 2nd, 3r or 4th hand experiences. I’ve helped a number of women through child and domestic abuse, not as a physician but as a friend with a knack for solving psychological puzzles.
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KarlFuler
11:39 16 Apr 2008
Why did you get Daisy Lowe to be in it?
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BrookeTaylor
13:20 16 Apr 2008
Good point. But I would guess our production happened like alot of other people's on this campaign. You have an idea and no budget and are trying to run with that idea; you pick up ingredients as you go. I hadn't confirmed anyone for the part and Trevor (the DP) had met Daisy. She said she was game she's a pleasure to work with and off we went. Same with the bloke; I spent two weeks trying unsuccessfully to cast an aging boxer (panicking we were going to have to use my scrawny bod) and two days before the shoot in walked our friend Momo between airports, a former athlete with a face that's got more character than a 'Goodfellas' extra..hey presto casting over.
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AlicePrin
19:49 16 Apr 2008
Dear Brooke. I’m into your indentification of these ideas. They’re challenging and complex and not well or widely understood – all the more reason to take articulation of ‘em on here. If you don’t get it right the first go so what? Trial and error. I wonder if budget was no option or you could do it again what changes would you make to bring it more toward your original intentions?
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harley
19:58 16 Apr 2008
nice to see you back alice
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BrookeTaylor
13:02 17 Apr 2008
Nice to see you back indeed...I thought I'd scared you into the underbrush with my long-winded outburst. To answer your question I would try and draw a clearer line between the masculine and feminine. As a gay friend of mine pointed out a while back, he said: "You don't know what a joke you (heteros) are to the gay community. As gays we speak the same language, same with lesbians but we are honestly amazed that you lot ever manage to coordinate your coupling because your languages are so different". And I suppose I would have liked to make the violence much more violent and Raging Bull-ish and the feminine response that much more tranquil and indifferent as her body produce these ridiculous luxury items to show how absurd it is to shout at someone in the wrong language. It's similar to the torture dynamic in Lions For Lambs; torturing someone more and more because they are literally incapable of responding to your question.
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GalileosUniverse
07:38 20 Apr 2008
I have been toiling with 'Angels Fell' in my mind and it keeps puzzling me in so many ways since it was posted here ..... I suppose that to be able to respond to it must require a certain degree of deep 'knowledge' on the subject , not just academically but mostly from the burdens of personal experience ....
If there is one film that intrigues me, niceties aside, is certainly this because violence in general seems to have become 'infectious' today ... and in the most unexpected places !
The subject is so incredible ..... cannot find the words for it ! , specially when reading about the high percentage of physical and mental violence against women, Anno Domini 2008 !!!, ...all around the world, which according to The World Health Organisation, up to 70 per cent of female murder victims are killed by their male partners.
Perhaps as Brooke Taylor modestly put it ... Aganovich didn't 'succeed' in the style he wished, wanted and tried to visualise it for us ... but he certainly managed to confront and alarm us on the subject ... and that is in my personal opinion a great positive step and a very constructive contribution ....
Thank you very much indeed for such a great contribution !!
'Violence against women is perhaps the most shameful human rights violation. And it is perhaps the most pervasive. It knows no boundaries of geography, culture, or wealth. As long as it continues, we cannot claim to be making real progress towards equality, development, and peace.'
Kofi Annan, UN Secretary General, 1999
PS. What a wonderful thinking .... 'Pussy Grenade Manifesto' .... I will certainly borrow it and post it on my .... wall :)
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