A Portrait of America as a Young Empire (in its Own Words)

Yet another kind of found-footage film, even though its director does not call it found footage – he doesn’t even call it film. It is more a programme, a mini-festival, in which obscure old films are presented in a cunning order. Cunning, because in their new and clashing order, the different films seem to refer to the present political situation. Bucher has a background as a visual artist and a clearly conceptual approach. He brings together strange and dissimilar material and then leaves the looking and thinking to the viewer, with the utmost respect for film material and viewer alike. As the title says – ‘In Its Own Words’ – the superpower speaks here without intervention, but the ravages of time reveal the necessary details. The programme is made up of three sections: Iraq Explained to Children, War for Good and Tell Tale Heart. All three are largely made up of old corporate films dating from the 1950s and 1960s, and are of an extremely varied nature. It starts out with funny animation and turns into uncut oil propaganda, and we also see films made for the army, government and business, be they educational or not. Bucher does not cut the material and so he doesn’t manipulate; as a result, it is even stranger to see how the themes and representations of the films mesh with current issues. The programme turns out to have been very meticulously chosen and compiled. This is manipulation, after all, and it’s allowed. (GjZ)