Routemaster - Theatre of the Motor consists of strobe-like,fast-flickering shots, and grainy, monochrome images of speeding rallycars. While Pohjola's Asphalto was still concerned with humaninteractions, here the absence of humanity is total (only the cadavers atthe end signify that there has been life, of some sort): what remains arethe machines in movement that is an end in itself. The rhythmic structureis provided by slow-motion, close-up shots of checkered flags, repeated atregular, mathematical intervals, with passing shades of blue providingalmost the only colour in the film. Shaky, hand-held cameras and splitscreens are used, with occasionally mosaics and repetitions of thecheckered flag theme. At times, the accelerating speed of the images makesit painful to watch the film, like a sort of visual Blitzkrieg waged onthe human nervous system through the viewer's tortured retinas. The wholewatching experience becomes increasingly fragmented.
Routemaster is a textbook example of pure kinetic motion: we can actuallysee the movements as horizontal lines, like in the oldMic Vaillantcomic books about the world of motor sports or, more recently, JapaneseManga. Everything becomes blurred, the speed itself numbs our senses asthe images turn into ever more splintered abstractions of thousands oflittle mosaic frames. Then, another color comes in, when we see theyellowish images of masked cadavers behind the steering wheel, in areference to controversial crash tests carried out using human corpses.Most disturbing are the rapid close shots of bare feet hanging like thoseof a crucified man. Everything becomes totally abstracted, until the finalshots return to the moving roadside images of the beginning. Then comesthe final freeze frame: the end of movement means death, and we, thespectators, become the corpses on the driver's seat.
The different sound mixes make the three versions ofRoutemasterslightly different experiences:
The Original San Francisco Mix by Jim McKee, Wieslaw Pogorzelski,Merzbow & NON: drone sounds from beneath which a factory rhythm isconstantly about to emerge, quietly sinister and slowly accelerating tocrescendo. Flute-like noises are heard, like extremely controlledfeedback. The violence is there, but somehow kept at bay. For the timebeing, at least.
Tokyo Noise Mix by Merzbow starts as a violent assault and aninsistent,unceasing machinery rhythm. The screeching become more dominant all thetime, like desperate brakes trying to prevent a collision, but knowingthat all efforts are ultimately futile. The crash is imminent, it is onlya question of when. Finally, it all breaks down into the sounds of chaos,which somehow sound strangely structured. In fact, it all seemspremeditated. This may be some sort of carefully arranged and plannedreligious ritual, enlightenment through blinding of all the senses.Absolutely sublime. Absolutely beautiful.
London Dance Mix by Lee Digi-Dub: The soundtrack consists ofsampled(and possibly also computer-generated) sounds of rally cars, their enginesand carburetors, beneath which pounds a sort of a metabreakbeat/drum'n'bass rhythm. The soundtrack moves on like a well-oiledengine, until finally only the sound of roaring cars is heard to start upagain, now with the bass drum sounds played backwards over the rhythmtrack, but retaining their slickness. -e. rautio
(English version revised by Mike Garner)
Asphalto
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