The Swing

Simultaneously dark, surreal, and unnerving, this seventeen-minute tape is a stark departure from the usually playful productions of the Videofreex. Through the use of slow fades, processed audio, and the juxtaposition of often-times violent imagery with a bleak, winter forest, the viewer is thrust into an atmospheric and experimental trip.

The opening shot captures the rotating motion of a tree swing whose ropes have been intertwined, ambient sounds of birds chirping and wood creaking in the background. As the point of view dreamily swings, distorted laughter can be heard echoing alongside a drone pulse of electronic noise. The image of a flowing river washes into view, eventually fading out to reveal the glimmer of a switchblade. This sequence gives way to the fileting of fish at a market. Then, a mouse being devoured by a snake. Another fade, and a cleaver swiftly comes down on a rooster’s neck – it spastically flapping its wings. The intense movement of that shot is contrasted by the next wherein, slowly and methodically, a butcher slits the throats of three sheep. The laughter, drone pulse, swing and stream return in a multi-layered shot melting the images and sounds together. This marks a shift in the video, the resulting, final sequence taking place along a partially frozen stream in the woods. The camera, in voyeuristic first person, follows a cloaked figure at a distance. Sometimes they enter the field of vision, always from afar, other times, the camera looks around as if lost – nothing but dead trees and the rocky, ice-covered creek. Heavy breathing behind the camera becomes more and more audible, one gets the feeling of panic, and a rough cut shows the cloaked figure looming above for an instant – the laughter from earlier begins again. Shortly thereafter the video abruptly finishes, and an end-card reading “EDITED AT MAPLE TREE FARM” appears – this too slowly fades away.

 — Nicolas Holt, 2016