Krepl (1988) by Schmelzdahin

With Krepl, the political dimension of Schmelzdahin’s research becomes clearer. The color scales the planes of scientific or colonial documentaries, horrible rubs that require these bodies scaled with the scalpel, these giant hamsters, these natives threatened by a camera that unsuccessfully repel. The inhuman mutilation of creatures determines chromatic pathology, color must be understood, not merely as a plastic liberation, but as a political gesture: it becomes the cinematographic path that today most often follows protest. According to a completely different visual syntax, we are not very far from the concerns that animate Criminals of Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi.