the Angry Breed

Bay Area Premieres! The late Joe Strummer once said, “Anger can be power if you know how to use it.” François Bucher, Paul Chan, and Norman Cowie are three angry young men who know how; a sense of ire permeates these works like the buzz of a smart bomb. Norman Cowie’s striking Scenes from an Endless War (2002, 32 mins) is an episodic montage of pre-wartime fetish and propaganda. Ornate on-air logos, bellicose sound-bites, cheerful weapons displays, and other forms of martial foreplay point toward war without end. Paul Chan’s remarkable RE: THE_OPERATION (2002, 27.5 mins) tells a fictional story of the Bush administration as it stumbles headlong into combat. Each cabinet member is depicted as a wounded warrior bound to the mire of mayhem by a web of psychosexual impulses. Daring and seductive, François Bucher’s White Balance (to think is to forget differences) (2002, 32 mins) engages the aftermath of 9/11 with caustic clarity. Concealed within the sheepish patriotism is a familiar whoop, the battle cry of privilege sounding from the ramparts of Western Civ.