Three-channel audiovisual installation by Guido van der Werve explores the id, ego, and superego in provocative ways (photo © Guido van der Werve / courtesy of the artist and Luhring Augustine, New York)
Luhring Augustine
531 West 24th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Through February 17, free, 10:00 am — 6:00 pm
212-206-9100
www.luhringaugustine.com
Locations for Dutch artist, triathlete, and classically trained pianist Guido van der Werve’s previous films have included Mount St. Helens, the San Andreas Fault, the summit of Aconcagua in the Andes, the North Pole, and the Arctic Ocean, where he walked across an iceberg while being trailed by a huge ship. For his latest work, Nummer zestien, the present moment, making its debut at Luhring Augustine in Chelsea through February 17, van der Werve, a classically trained pianist who is based in Finland, Amsterdam, and Berlin, takes viewers inside his head, where he explores characters relating to his id, ego, and superego. The three-channel installation follows a trio of groups, one depicting older, naked men and women as they go through such daily activities of waking up, eating, and napping; a second consisting of a mixed-age collection of men and women barefoot and dressed in black, doing yoga and meditating; and the third comprising younger men and women (professional porn actors) engaging in ever-more-intimate acts of sex, with nothing (and we mean nothing) held back. In the center of the gallery is a player piano, which plays a lovely score written and performed by van der Werve, who is not appearing in one of his films for the first time; there’s not even a piano bench for visitors to contemplate his physical presence. The film is divided into twelve sections, each dedicated to a different sign of the zodiac and time of year; the camera movement on all three screens slowly traces the outline of the constellation in the sky. The action on each screen is set in a black room with a soft floor, a kind of visual psyche that highlights the whiteness of the all-Caucasian cast. In addition to relating to Freud’s theories about personality, Nummer zestien, the present moment also brings up issues of life and death as the three groups of people continue their own explorations of the mind and/or body. Van der Werve, who specializes in making films that portray durational activities, has created yet another involving, provocative work, one that will have you considering your own place in the universe, at the present moment.
“What were they doing flying that low, shooting at a dog, at us?” meteorologist Bennings (Peter Maloney) asks Dr. Copper (Richard Dysart) after watching a Norwegian helicopter pilot pursue a dog in the Antarctic, at the beginning of John Carpenter’s The Thing. “Stir crazy. Cabin fever. Who knows?” the doc answers, more than justifying Nitehawk Cinema’s inclusion of the cult film in its February Midnite series Cabin Fever. Carpenter’s 1982 remake of Christian Nyby’s 1951 Cold War sci-fi classic, The Thing from Another World, adds touches of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Alien, with Kurt Russell leading an all-star cast of familiar character actors set up like a Vietnam War platoon. Russell is the cowboy-hat-wearing R. J. MacReady, part of a group of men at U.S. National Science Institute Station 4 in the frozen Antarctic. The crew also includes soft-spoken biologist Dr. Blair (Wilford Brimley), pot-smoking hippie assistant mechanic Palmer (David Clennon), nice guy geophysicist Vance Norris (Charles Hallahan), dedicated dog handler Clark (Richard Masur), funkster cook Nauls (T. K. Carter), assistant biologist Fuchs (Joel Polis), excitable communications officer Windows (Thomas G. Waites), serious station commander M. T. Garry (Donald Moffat), and skeptical chief mechanic Childs (Keith David). Soon some kind of monster from outer space is on the loose, able to disguise itself as other living creatures, making everyone suspicious of one another, the paranoia growing along with the terror and violence.
Danish writer-director Tobias Lindholm puts you right in the middle of the action in The War, his searing portrait of the modern state of battle as seen through the eyes of a dedicated family man who makes a decision in the heat of the moment that jeopardizes his future. The first part of the film takes place in Afghanistan, where the Danish army, which has not been involved in its own war in more than 150 years, is supporting the efforts of the United States and England. A small company, led by Claus Michael Pedersen (Pilou Asbæk), is protecting a desert area where the Taliban is believed to be infiltrating a nearby village. Lindholm and cinematographer Magnus Nordenhof Jønck, who have previously worked together on R and A Hijacking, make the audience feel like it’s right there as a soldier is blown up by an IED, the men encounter an Afghan family that might or might not be collaborating with the Taliban, and a terrorist uses children as a human shield. The story occasionally shifts back home, where Pedersen’s wife, Maria (Tuva Novotny), is caring for their three children by herself. The two worlds come crashing together after Pedersen makes a judgment call while trying to rescue Lutfi “Lasse” Hassan (Dulfi Al-Jabouri), who’s been shot by a sniper as their compound is under attack. It’s all far more subtle, and more believable, than, say, the opening of Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan or Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper; it’s not so much about the horrors, violence, and heroism of war in general but its potential after-effects in an ever-more-complex politically correct climate.