Carsten Aschmann
Germany
2012 | 0:22:00

This German film is poetic in every sense of the word. It teases the viewer out of his/her wits, provokes thought and arrives at something revelatory with an impressive economy. The film essentially is a collage of visuals captured over various landscapes and times each showing different forms in which water manifests itself in the modern civilization and how it intersects with our lives, our institutions, systems and setups. So we get to see dams, waterfalls, factories, treatment plants, fountains, canals, pipelines, hydraulic lifts etc. So what is so extraordinary in this seemingly normal and ordinary premise? It’s the novel cinematic rendition of the theme that makes this film pressingly relevant and contemporary.

Suffused with sounds from the history of cinema, we see waterways, locks, dams, wastewater treatment works, floodgates, fountains and waterfalls, none of which appear exclusive or spectacular. Seemingly abandoned and forgotten, they become the places where water encounters architecture and technology which, in turn, work for it, with it and against it. A dialogue between water and man takes place in which man surrenders to water or feels the need to objectify it. Water never lets him go free. In its formal composition

WATERSCOPE is in the tradition of an essay film. Forgoing economic, ecological or scientific explanations, it creates itself with the essence of water.


Extrait:
http://www.hula-offline.de/h5waterscope_cluster_transitions_lines.html

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Quentin Brière Bordier
France
2012 | 0:55:30

A violent wind generates the images. The atmosphere is air tight. Silent bodies in front of the mirror. The ritual of small repetitive gestures opens the scene at the hairdressers. In an unpredictable and fragile present, the traces of a past world hussle themselves within carved faces.The storm quiets itself. A slow lethargy takes over everyday life: some people are eating, singing, playing, some are walking in the sculpted out spaces. These lives are silenced by slowly sinking into the ordinary world, bodies swinging themselves at the gates of deep sleep.

Then, one day, humanity wakes up and crosses over to the exterior side. Armed with wise gestures and precious postures, they watch with a smile an uneasy world falling apart. The event has already taken place. The last men are standing straight as trees, eternal survivors witnessing the disaster of the absent world within the world. From this consistant and unchangeable absence, these last men save the images.

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Un vent violent génère les images. L’espace est hermétiquement clos. Corps muets devant le miroir. Chez le coiffeur, de petits gestes répétés tel un rituel avant une entrée en scène. Dans un présent fragile et indéterminé, les traces d’un monde passé se heurtent avec les visages marqués. La tempête se calme. Une lente léthargie engloutit la vie quotidienne : des gens mangent, chantent, jouent, se promènent dans l’espace dessiné ; vies freinées plongeant peu à peu dans l’aphonie du monde ordinaire, corps se balançant à l’orée du sommeil.

Puis, les hommes, un jour, se réveillent et traversent l’extérieur. Armés de gestes sages et de précieuses postures, ils assistent, souriant, à la gêne d’un monde catastrophé. L’événement a déjà eu lieu. Les derniers hommes se tiennent droits comme des arbres, éternels survivants, uniques témoins de la catastrophe de l’absence du monde dans le monde. De cette absence, constante et immuable, ces derniers hommes sauvent les images.

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