Awakening

A room, a window, a woman in bed. Joanna Hogg constructs this year’s Viennale trailer from three elements that are also defining motifs in the oeuvre of Chantal Akerman, one of her avowed heroes. Could AWAKENING be an homage? The monochrome images and puckish existential humour, reminiscent of SAUTE MA VILLE (1968) and JE TU IL ELLE (1974), equally suggest this is the case. Regardless, the curiosity and integrity of those films are an apt touchstone for reflecting on cinema at our present moment. With equal economy and precision, Hogg crafts a vignette that is absurd, incongruous and yet all too relatable. A woman tries to sleep while a commotion outside escalates into all-out war. Sirens blare and her head disappears under the duvet. Machine guns rattle, bombs explode and she presses a pillow over both ears. Fighter jets roar across the sky, tank tracks squeal over asphalt, and the air fills with screams before she is finally roused out of bed and over to the window. As the woman’s stricken eye beholds the carnage, the reflection of the camera is clearly visible within her iris, a potent reminder of its dual role as witness and mirror. (V25 Katalog, Giovanni Marchini Camia)