Now Playing at AFS: Stories About Art as Communication

The AFS virtual cinema currently features several films that represent more than just what’s on screen. In addition to communicating baked-in ideas and structured narratives within the confines of the medium, they invite viewers to engage with the people, emotions, and cultures that shaped them.

BEYOND THE VISIBLE: HILMA AF KLINT

(2019) dir. Halina Dryschka

Hilma af Klint was, by all accounts, the Swedish inventor of abstract art. This was unknown for many years because art history, as constructed by men, has unjustifiably silenced women by design. In 1906, af Klint began to produce 193 pieces that defy much of what people understand to be the art canon. Many of these pieces were not shown until long after her death, something the specifically instructed (as well as something that would irrationally be held against her as one of many ways to exclude her). Her approach questioned the nature of reality itself while confidently illuminating ideas about gender, spirituality, and science.

Throughout the film, there are stunning comparisons between af Klint’s work and pieces by artists like Mondrian, Kandinsky, and Warhol. She retroactively represents a completely unmatched presence that essentially laid out a century’s worth of artistic evolution in a very short period of time. Men and stubbornly male institutions appear to have been threatened by this woman who mystified and easily outpaced them. When af Klint sought mentorship, she was met with irrationally gendered resentment and rejection. Even though professional prospects were nonexistent, artifacts shown in the film suggest that she had a healthy social life and a community of supportive women.

History is something we’re taught is fixed, but much of it is communicated by self-appointed authorities in the form of skewed narratives we internalize. In the case of art history, men have driven the story for a long time. There are many more women like Hilma af Klint who simply haven’t received the platforms and encouragement enjoyed by their male peers. Beyond filling in a troubling gap that exists in every aspect of our patriarchal society, this film represents what one person refers to as an overturning of all that was previously known. Like Hilma af Klint’s work, society’s late discovery of her genius restructures reality as we know it.

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TOMMASO

(2019) dir. Abel Ferrara

Tomasso is Willem Dafoe’s magnetic character in this experimental film. His name translates to “twin,” which is interesting given that this entire project is a reflection of its director’s life. Abel Ferrara cast his actual wife and daughter alongside Dafoe, who is playing either a heightened or diluted incarnation of Ferrara depending on the scene. 

There are many narratives by men about men. It often seems as though they are only to be able to hold their own perspectives as valuable. While this film indulges in many tropes associated with traditionally male storytelling, Dafoe’s striking vulnerability calls into question our assumed rigidity of the perspective he embodies. As he engages in intimate moments with his director’s actual family and surroundings, he inhabits selfishness, entitlement, and hypocrisy, but also a profound fear of existence itself.

The most revelatory moments in the film occur during support meetings for people on the path to either becoming or remaining sober. As a part of his performance as Tommaso/Ferrara, Dafoe announces that he is celebrating his sixth year of sobriety. This achievement clashes with his seemingly deteriorating romantic relationship. Infidelity becomes a common undercurrent in the story frequently tied to either boredom, addiction, or denial. The ways in which the film’s humanistic approach engages with different vices and forms of trauma makes for a piece that feels bigger than something to merely consume. Masculine tropes notwithstanding, this all feels like Ferrara’s attempt to understand why filmmakers even aim to tell stories on screen.

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OUR TIME MACHINE

(2020) dir. Yang Sun and S. Leo Chiang

The questions posed by this touching documentary have no simple answers. They center on things like art’s proximity to mortality and who among us feels empowered to do creative work. 

The film is structured around the gargantuan and emotionally complex effort by a Chinese artist named Maleonn to put on a Chinese opera (featuring incredible puppets) for his father. Beyond being a love letter to the man he idolizes, the endeavor is an urgent attempt to create a sentimental time capsule. While the logistical and financial hurdles of creating the show are being figured out, Maleonn’s father’s memories and sense of self are fading away.

In every scene, the matter of death looms large. By portraying its primary subject confronting his deepest fears, the film boldly examines how the fragility of life can wear us down. The titular time machine, a fantastical concept driving the show, evokes the appeal of a hypothetical device that could store our memories. All Maleonn wants is for some things to feel permanent even though he knows, deep down, that the more fluid aspects of life are exactly what make creativity a meaningful calling. His identity as an artist implies a deep curiosity about death even though his identity as a child, brother, and partner wishes to avoid its existence in the case of his father.

It’s remarkable how much personal, emotional, and political ground the film covers. There are segments about an event called the Cultural Revolution in China that endangered Maleonn’s parents. As young people, they were both artists that had to suppress their instincts—and even bring Maleonn into the world—to survive. The inclusion of this story in the documentary illuminates both Maleonn’s desire to connect with his father and the complicated ramifications of discouraging creative expression. What persists throughout the movie is a fundamental question about the meaning of storytelling: Can it save us, or is it better as a conduit for embracing all that we can’t control? 

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MR. SOUL!

(2018) dir. Melissa Haizlip

Ellis Haizlip used his PBS series “Soul!” to provide Black voices with a place where no explanation of their beauty was needed. This revelatory platform, on the air from 1968-1973, provided performers, activists, and anyone invested in Black liberation to fully embody their humanity and unique gifts. This documentary was lovingly made by Melissa Haizlip, Ellis’ niece. That situates it in pop culture as an extension of what Ellis would have wanted—a continued examination of how Black culture has become American culture despite the country’s foundational anti-Black racism. 

The film features amazing clips of people like Al Green and Toni Morrison coming on “Soul!” to introduce themselves to the world. It also incorporates a thorough history of the cultural context that spawned the program and how it was connected to the ideas of people like James Baldwin and Stokely Carmichael. The deaths of JFK, Martin Luther King, Jr., Bobby Kennedy, and Malcolm X wouldn’t typically be the kinds of events referenced in a documentary about a PBS show, but the visions of both Ellis and Melissa Haizlip demand that kind of clear-eyed retelling. 

“Soul!” existed alongside passionate calls for civil rights legislation in the 1960s and Richard Nixon’s campaign against the “liberal media.” Ellis was considered “radical” by default in a country that was primarily interested in advancing a certain idea of whiteness. The necessity of “Soul!” only feels more tangible in 2020, a time when systemic reckonings of all kinds are being both vocalized and suppressed. Ellis Haizlip, his revolutionary openness, and his wonderful crew would be more than welcome on our current screens.