The Grand Bizarre

For her most ambitious film to date, celebrated experimental filmmaker Jodie Mack, who already experimented with abstract patterns, textiles and collages in her short films, took her Bolex camera out into the world. She filmed in fifteen countries, over a period of five years, then came up with a title inspired by the bizarre scale and logic of international trade flows.

She wove her short 16mm recordings into a patchwork of global impressions, applying stop motion, time-lapse techniques and often manic editing. People are mere passers-by; the starring role goes to some colourful fabrics, which, after escaping from a suitcase, travel the world by land, sea and air. Meanwhile, spinning and bouncing globes merge all locations, cities and countries into one kaleidoscopic whole. Always containing those flickering, shifting and spinning stop-motion cloths – it’s not stroboscopic per se, but may still deserve a warning for viewers with epilepsy.

The mechanical aspect of textile production she records, with pounding machinery and spinning wheels, is echoed by the 4/4 time pop music largely composed by Mack herself, in which she forces the sampled ambient sounds of machines, traffic, but also birds.

But however much people may want to capture the world in patterns – of which Mack also features maps, alphabets, musical notations and others – ultimately, the natural elements will have the last word, naturally. Just as in the opening scenes, a sagging stack of boxes is consumed by flames and a few brightly coloured fabrics get dragged away by the sea.