(Photo by Joel Ninmann)
Last night in 4070 Vilas Hall, the bi-annual Communication Arts showcase reaffirmed why it’s such a consistent highlight of every Cinematheque schedule. Pieces were selected from “Comm Arts 155: Intro to Digital Media Production,” “Comm Arts 355: Intro to Media Production,” and “Comm Arts 467: Cinematography and Sound Editing” and ranged from documentary and comedy to ones as abstract as wordless meditations on structure.
The latter applies to Christian Inouye’s “Spaces (Water + Chairs)” which used gorgeous tracking shots of the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery building to present the university building in all its naturally-lit glory. Other selections from “CA 355” included Matthew Norman’s “Misophonia,” which relied on muscular sound mixing and design rather than dialogue to provoke the frustrations of a student surrounded by noisy library patrons. Jack Finnegan’s “Tequila” played one actor’s straight man sensibilities off the comedic chops of another. When a young man pays a street musician for playing “Tequila” but fails to answer with its single exclamation, the musician starts showing up on the same sidewalks and even outside the man’s apartment. Katrina Simyab’s “Blood Money” told a quick, tense story about a couple on the run from a faceless danger. An untitled entry from Ashkan Forouhi combined the tedium of library workers for a dizzying display parallel action and kaleidoscopic editing, “Life of a Football Coach” followed football coach Ben Strickland around campus, and “I Wanna Dance with Somebuddy” documented an end-of-year celebration for UW-Madison’s Best Buddies program.
“CA 155” projects included “Two Face,” in which a young woman begins having disturbing dreams after a mysterious stuffed animal appears outside her apartment. The stuffed animal’s tinkling chimes haunt every frame of “Two Face” before they’re distorted and manipulated into an atonal lullaby and the young woman’s notions of reality and sanity become increasingly blurred and traumatic. “Across the Pacific” told the isolating and hopeful experiences of three Chinese exchange students at UW-Madison while “The Bromance” and “A Night at the Morgue” applied comedy to their narratives. Jannie Russnow, CeCe Thomas, and Katie Zutter used melodrama in their tale of estranged dorm bros and their bond over FIFA 15, while “A Night at the Morgue” forced a security guard to drag what he thinks is a fresh corpse around the building for slapstick laughs.
Select scenes from larger “CA 467” productions featured a period sequence from Hotel Tudor where a man hides out from some disreputable types in an early 20th century hotel, and The Fallout in which a woman answers an ominous call from her husband. “Books,” a miscellaneous documentary selection from “CA 609” featured director Jacob Mertens compounding the history of the printed word. Ornate but never stuffy, “Books” deemed the quest for knowledge as a conquest on its own and discussed the overwhelming burden of printed knowledge in the wake of Johannes Gutenberg.
Last night also marked the final Cinematheque screening in 4070 Vilas before a long-planned remodeling project commences over winter break. Attendees may or may not have left with their own fuzzy red chair keepsakes.