In The Spinning Wheel, the three figures Ryan, Christoffel and Babi appear rather inanimate and clumsily puppet-like, an impression enhanced still by the ridiculously 'uncanny' effect of the badly synchronized voice-over: they seem nothing more than stodgy, endearingly powerless ventriloquist's dummies in a fittingly puppet-like wooden interior, invoking stifling memories of a childhood led in the oppressively petty-minded setting of 'la Flandre profonde'.

 

Endowed with telekinetic powers, Babi starts to unleash the eerie force of magic on the dead objects that populate the small, enclosed space, starting with the clothes of the clueless twin brothers Christoffel and Ryan; in the course of this spellbinding orgy of dancing chairs and household appliances, one object eventually lands on the head of one of the twins, momentarily transforming him into a mock-image of the golem-like figure we came across in Parallelogram.

 

Before they are mysteriously returned to their original positions, the chairs and spinning wheel for a very short time during this 'disruption of things' seem to lord it over this musty, dank microcosm and, temporarily animated, turn against their petty masters.

 

The film was screened or exhibited at:

 

  • To be continued

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Credits

 

  • Courtesy the artists and gallery, Micheline Szwajcer, Brussels

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