A good movie

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this movie but, since it was included in the ‘1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die’ list, I was quite eager to check it out. I have to admit that I had never heard of Bruce Conner before but he was apparently an American artist who worked with many different media including such movies. In this case, it was a rather experimental short with some television coverage around John F. Kennedy assassination with the audio reports regarding this event constantly going on in the background. Kennedy was (and actually still is) such a popular US president and the most recent one to have been assassinated and to have died in office. As a result, the impact of his sudden tragic death on the US population at the time was huge and I wonder what Conner was feeling/thinking when he made this movie, especially since he made it only 4 years after the actual assassination took place. Anyway, as far as I was concerned, I have to admit that this short did feel quite visceral and even dazzling sometimes. Even though it was years ago, I did have a couple of epileptic seizures and, sometimes for minutes long, there was only this stroboscopic light going on, it was seriously uncomfortable and I was glad when it finally stopped. Eventually, there was this contrast between the seemingly random images going at hyper speed, sometimes repeating themselves over and over again and the comments which were so specific, so factual, but, at the end, they were saying pretty much nothing after all. One aspect (the visuals) was very unclear and opaque and the other aspect (the comments) was so detailed and this mix was quite intense and so disorienting. Eventually, it was an intriguing avant-garde short showing how much the news might impact us way beyond than only giving us the facts about what might be going on in the world and I have to admit that it did have a lasting effect on me. 

7/10