De verbeelding van Henri Plaat

Henri Plaat's films are characterized by an extremely visual style with a good eye for colour, composition and atmosphere. His films are collages of colour, light and movement, together with experimental soundtracks, assemblies of music and spoken word.

This evening four of his most important and most beautiful films will be shown, which demonstrate his fascination for the absurdism of WWII as well as his interest in the history of film and the beauty of memory and decay. Short interview fragments and a cinematic portrait of Henri Plaat by Jerome Schlomoff complete the program, introduced by Mark-Paul Meyer, curator of Eye.

Absürd (1973, 2', new 2K restauration)

Short absurd film in which a mix of music and German spoken texts support an ominous atmosphere of threat, fear and doom.

Fragments of Decay (1983, 12', new 2K restoration)

From the left-overs of the films Henri Plaat made during his many travels, he made this film as an improvisation on a world in decay, but also a world of nostalgia, full of signs of time past, of how people created and lived.

Second War Hats (1986, 4', new 2K restoration)

Somewhere in a bombed city: from a manhole in the street transvestite heads show beautiful ladies hats. We see the latest fashion and hear cheerful music while the war continues. This film was made after a distressing trip to Warsaw and was in 1989 awarded with the L.J. Jordaan prize.

Spurs of Tango (1980, 32', new 2K restoration)

On his travels through South America Plaat filmed daily situations to capture the omnipresence of the spirit of Carlos Cardel, the King of Tango who died in 1935. The film stands out in composition, light and colour in combination with the tango music. In 1981 Henri Plaat received the Golden Calf for Spurs of Tango.