Evolution

Simon Pummell | UK | 1995 | 5' |

| IFFR 2001

As a continuing obsession, the anatomy of the human body recurs in all the films of Simon Pummell. From Surface Tension (1986) to Temptation ofSainthood (1993), and Evolution (1995) it appears as though he has primarily developped each time very different techniques to further liberate the human figure from it’s (conceptual as well as material) harness. Between the early pencil-drawn studies of a figure in motion and the recent computer graphics, Pummell also works with paint, skeleton-armatures and pixillation. This original body of work is admirable in its technical diversity and sophistication, and at the same time surprisingly coherent in style and intention. Sober but intense soundtracks set the mood, a combination of elegance and elegy. Surface tension occurs each time Pummell plays with the distinction between inside and outside, transparent and opaque, ‘the spiderweb of textures beneath the skin.’ This parallels his desire to reconcile ecstasy and pathology, conscious and subconscious. He invites us on an excursion, the journey through a body, to reach ‘the intensified eroticism of the soul.’