Tourneur (2018)
By Yalda Afsah
A bullfight in the South of France. White foam is flowing into the arena, blurring the view of animals and humans. Tourneur shows young men in the ring with a bull – their gestures are between archaic subjugation and modern dance. Image and sound, foreground and background, on-screen and off-screen combined in a highly artificial and surreal way. Up to the moment when the bull suddenly breaks through the presentation. In her latest series Yalda Afsah explores the relationship between humans and animals, probing the boundary between care and subjugation and the dominance exercised by humans. Her works resemble choreographies, but the films themselves start from real facts. “Tourneur” is an abstract study about the archaic tradition of bullfighting in France. The film shows young men circling and taunting a bull that appears in the frame. The footage, made up of momentary sequences, removes the event from its cultural and geographic context, transposing it into an abstract cinematic space. Afsah’s sound track and the use of music highlight the physicality of the humans and the bull. Artist and filmmaker Yalda Afsah (b. 1983, DE/IR) explores how space can be cinematically construct…
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