The Use of Movement

The Use of Movement considers the formal edges of the frame and the way in which camera movement, whether slight or dramatic, is ascribed with meaning. A series of tableaux are played out—with foreign language voice-overs providing the only real narrative context. A sleepless woman is haunted by images she has watched on the internet; a man drives an ice cream truck down a barren street; a couple ride a motorscooter in the twilight; steam rises from manhole covers. Each scene is an incomplete narrative—and the monologues in Spanish, German, Bengali, and Italian only serve to provide a degree of abstraction to the sound treatment—distancing most of us from the more visceral aspects of the film form and creating occasional dissonances with what’s happening visually.