Coming Attractions

Commercials, early cinema and avant-garde film: 24 links a second are woven between these three cinemas “of attractions”. In a series of non-narrative chapters, Peter Tscherkassky mixes matter (superimposed and negative images, perforations) with a truly hypnotic virtuosity. Coming Attractions places the spectator in the position of a 19th-century stroller who has entered a fairground projection. Everything on screen is directly addressed to him, to entice him. This exploration of cinema’s intrinsic exhibitionism is further enriched by rushes of “housewife” commercials that, albeit somewhat ridiculous, still have an insistent and melancholy beauty, when similar shots and gestures are looped and repeated over and over again.

Charlotte Garson