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by Siegfried A. Fruhauf
grade: 8
Cave Painting is a true visual experience. An essential film that in just fifteen minutes tells us about the past and present of our beloved cinema. Past and present that meet, mingle, merge and together draw an exhaustive picture of what cinema has realised in little more than a century. At the Diagonale’23.
Colours of yesterday and today
The first idea of projections of moving images was mentioned in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. There, in fact, the shadows projected onto the cave wall played a central role in the perceptions of reality that the prisoners in the cave had. It is precisely in caves, moreover, that the first forms of artistic expression are to be found, thanks to the numerous cave paintings found over the centuries. And even if cinema is, in fact, considered a rather recent art, we see how the idea of reproducing reality was, in fact, born many, many centuries ago. In this sense, then, the short film Cave Painting, directed by Siegfried A. Fruhauf and presented as part of the programme of the Diagonale’23, would represent on the one hand a sort of ‘return to the origins’, and on the other hand a new, innovative way of understanding the cinematic spectacle in itself.
In Cave Painting, therefore, we see how a series of abstract and colourful images alternate on screen through skilful editing, creating a frenetic flicker. Images that seemingly depict forms without any meaning, but in which we gradually recognise handprints and moving figures.
Siegfried A. Fruhauf, for his part, has skilfully created a mix of analogue footage, digital animation and painting, giving his precious little short film the most varied form possible. Cave Painting, therefore, is a true visual experience. An essential film that in just fifteen minutes tells us about the past and present of our much-loved cinema. Past and present that meet, mingle, merge and together draw an exhaustive picture of what cinema has realised in little more than a century.
There is no need, in Cave Painting, for captions or special effects. It is up to the colours of the images and the editing to make every single frame alive and vibrant on screen. And so, immediately, we think back to some of the great masters in the history of avant-garde cinema and how they made certain flickers their workhorse (it is impossible not to think, in this regard, of the great Peter Kubelka, although his cinema is much more ‘extreme’ and, if you like, more ‘pure’).
Siegfried A. Fruhauf, for his part, has always enjoyed experimenting with new languages, new ways of depicting reality, while at the same time celebrating cinema itself with all its many potentialities. Suffice it to think, for instance, of Mountain Trip (1999), probably his most famous work, in which a series of postcards depicting Austrian landscapes (edited as if they were a single, continuous landscape) conveyed a very precise message. Cave Painting is an even more abstract work, but it too seems to know perfectly what to communicate to the viewer. And in a triumph of colours, we realise how much cinema still manages to surprise us today, to hypnotise us, to make us dream.
Original title: Cave Painting
Directed by: Siegfried A. Fruhauf
Country/year: Austria / 2023
Running time: 15’
Genre: animation, experimental
Screenplay: Siegfried A. Fruhauf
Cinematography: Siegfried A. Fruhauf
Produced by: Siegfried A. Fruhauf