Although I saw them back in October, Kelly Sears’ animations remain ingrained in my memory. What she presented to the few of us who were present in the Cornell Cinema that afternoon was a selection of short films in which she removed imagery from its original context, and, as she described it, “made it work against itself.” Not sure what to expect, I kept an open mind as I watched the series of films.
I found “Once It Started It Could Not End Otherwise” to be the most disturbing of all the films. Although it was nothing more than a series of 1970s high school yearbook photos set against some backgrounds of an outdated high school, it managed to communicate a horror much deeper. The first aspect of the film that struck me was the feeling of awkwardness that came to mind while looking at the old yearbook photos. With the repeated appearance of the photos, Sears called to mind the feelings of dissatisfaction with our looks and of worrying about “fitting in” that seem synonymous with high school, and truly drew me into the atmosphere of being there once more. The story got darker when it mentioned a horror that had occurred at the high school in the past. In addition to the photos, there was written dialogue on screen, and notes scrawled in pen on the high school yearbook pages — yet the dialogue only hinted at the horrible event, the notes remained illegible, and the people in the yearbooks remained nameless. The only sound in the film was a vague, electronic-sounding screeching, and a loud noise that played whenever a new picture of a high schooler appeared on screen. Rather than constructing a story for the viewer, the viewer was left instead to construct their own meaning for the event, possibly calling to mind similar tragedies that have occurred in recent years, such as the Columbine shooting or other school shootings. I remember the film mostly for the visceral unrest I felt while watching it.
My favorite of the films, however, was the less disturbing, but still mysterious “The Drift.” Set in the 1960s at the height of the space race, “The Drift” told the story of an alternate America in which people no longer cared about material things or even about expanding their families — the only thing on anyone’s mind was space exploration. To me, this alternative reality sounded slightly single-minded, but still oddly inspiring — I think that it would be fascinating to live in a society where exploration beyond Earth was made a top priority. This film was the only one that employed smooth, harmonic background music, rather than discordant, jarring noise — I felt that this was appropriate, given that the plot of the film revolved around a spacecraft that got lost on its mission, but found a sound in space that was so beautiful that people wanted to listen to it constantly. Eventually, the government began to block the “contraband broadcasts” of the sound from space, and people had to simply let it go. However, although the space sound was no longer available to them, they nevertheless created their own sound in response: psychedelic rock. I thought the film was a fascinating alternate history for the underground movement created in the 1960s and perfectly appropriate for the title of the collection of films.
As I was leaving the theater, I felt a mix of emotions — unsettled by “Once It Started,” excited by “The Drift,” and most of all, fascinated by the way that Sears was able to use imagery in such an innovative way. I had considered animation as an art form in the past, but never imagined how it could be avant-garde — I was only accustomed to catching snippets of cartoons on television from time to time, or of seeing them on Youtube — always drawn out or made with CGI, using voices or upbeat music, and telling a story with a clear plot. I am grateful to Sears for giving me a new view on the medium, and I hope to see more of her work in the future.