email print share on Facebook share on Twitter share on LinkedIn share on reddit pin on Pinterest

BERLINALE 2022 Encounters

Review: American Journal

by 

- BERLINALE 2022: In his video essay composed of historic amateur footage, director Arnaud des Pallières once again dives into the myth of America

Review: American Journal

Ten years after first using cinematographic archives of American daily life in Poussières d’Amérique (2011), film director and essayist Arnaud des Pallières returns with another historical trip across the country titled American Journal [+see also:
interview: Arnaud des Pallières
film profile
]
. This essay film is framed as a journal, spanning from innocent early childhood memories to the trauma of warmongering and disillusion, encased in rare visual impressions from decades long gone. The film premiered in the Encounters section of the Berlinale on 14 February.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

There is an idea of the American dream, at first glistening through the multitude of romanticised filmed scenarios. Farmers moving a barn, people in fancy clothes and stylish hats bustling through the streets, shiny cars conquering the vastness of the freeways and a picturesque countryside. “I remember dreaming that I found some precious stones for my parents,” the title inserts begin. It is all a dream, a romantic idea of a place. But just as the narrator loses the pebbles through a hole in his pocket or later dreams of catching fish only to awake in a train, this dream can never be achieved or captured. It is an illusion for the idealist.

The topic of these little narratives, that unveil themselves insert by insert, were first conceived by famous artists, philosophers and writers. Besides American talents like Russel Banks or Stephen Crane, the texts originate from Walter Benjamin, Arthur Schopenhauer and Jose Luis Borges. Not American wordsmiths, but then again, when was the American idea ever a monocultural project? Another famous source of inspiration is Mark Twain. His is the easily distinguishable tale of a (fake) lost twin brother.

While the words keep their eternal timeliness, there is something antiquated, yet fascinating about the old grainy material des Pallières selected and its anchor in a time gone by. Watching people in their daily life between what are probably the late 30s to the early 70s evokes ideas of the past glory of the country - one that will be challenged for the 112 minutes of runtime. He was dreaming, the narrator repeatedly explains, and maybe so is this idealist American dream.

While the early minutes are a loose selection of footage and themes, such as houses, human crowds, traffic and the ocean, as the movie goes on there is a more coordinated matching of journaling and visuals. Fitting sound and music are artificially added. Together with the title cards, the film evokes the impression of a silent film or the 8mm era long gone, while arranged and edited within the needs of a modern sensibility. Film is subjective, de Pallières shows us, everything a diegetic illusion. Even more so, further down the narrative, film and text begin to diverge. At one point, he calls out his own manipulative interference with the material. “This film is mine and not mine”, he explains. The gaze may not be his, but the arrangement and omissions are.

While the early journal entries speak in euphoric terms of dreams of fish, stones and fairies, the latter half is characterised by an increased level of fighting and indoctrinated ideology. The footage changes to the more mainstream American iconography of cheap overrun burger joints, with the journal discussing the extinction of highly developed alien civilisations. One can only assume that these associations give way to an idea of a decline in human and societal accomplishments.

The fancy New York skyscrapers, bustling train stations and desert rocks are exchanged for an almost fetishistic orchestration of navy ships, smiling soldiers, nuclear bombs and massive piles of corpses. The journal writer recalls why he joined the army. “Because my grandfather fought these bastards, my father fought these bastards”. Which bastards, his counterpart asks him. “Well, them”.

“Be quiet and do as you’re told,” the journaling protagonist is told at one point. He doesn’t need to be. He is already celebrating the victory over “those subhumans.” Is this a specific American problem that des Pallières addresses, in stark contrast to pretty mountain roads and gleeful kids at a fair? “Happy little fish taste better,” the journal reads in an elaborate metaphor of men becoming sharks. And fish, one could assume, can be found in every sea and ocean around the world.

American Journal is produced by Les Films Hatari. It is distributed internationally by Les Films de l'Atalante.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

Did you enjoy reading this article? Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive more stories like this directly in your inbox.

Privacy Policy