Tito-Material (1998)

• 83%
• 1998
• Elke Groen

Elke Groen salvaged fragments of a film from the rubble of a cinema in war-torn Mostar. It was called Tito from close up and dated from around 1978. The weathered film, riddled with traces of time and history shows Tito at public events, together with partisans and "in private". The material is in the process of decay. Holes gapes through the emulsion. Some passages have become completely abstract and only consist of shapes and colors. Groen investigated this strip of film, felt its scuffs, tears and folds and photographed the fluctuating colors as well as the accumulated dirt. She doesn't force the fragment into a unified structure, but instead tries various things out as she goes along. She notes details, enlarges parts of the images (and thus, also, the grain). She lays down short loops, makes the pictures flicker, has them hesitate or even come to a stand still. She reacts to the origins and historical context of the piece cautiously. She notes things and comments events that can only be touched on indirectly in this film. The context is inherently emotionally charges, the beauty of the dissolving pictures sometimes over-powering. The original source was apparently a propaganda film of a system now consigned to the history books, and it made extensive use of pictures from the Second World War. Groen's selection of material uses these images very sparingly. Her film hints at things, no more and no less.