COMBAT BREATHING: PERPETUAL RECURRENCES, PART 3: PERPETUAL RECURRENCES (2016)
Directed by Reem Shilleh
60 minutes
A meta-reflection on the militant image and its contemporary reappearances, PERPETUAL RECURRENCES montages scenes extracted from numerous films and videos created over the last four decades by Palestinians and about Palestine, tracking thematic, gestural, and compositional repetitions between works produced during the Palestinian revolutionary period of 1968-82, the period following the 1993 Oslo Accords, and the volatile twenty-first century. Through Reem Shilleh's methodical stitching together of repeating filmic occurrences – with respect to location, political discourse, mise-en-scene, objects, and so on – various scenes become unfixed from their narrative contexts and historical conditions, inviting expansive associations and haunting correspondences. Meandering in a seemingly improvised fashion between cinematic fragments of classroom instruction and conversing militants gathered under trees to handheld camera shots of refugee camps and moving car shots of streets, checkpoints, and landscapes, Shilleh's vast media traversal materializes an equally lyrical and deconstructive reimagination of exercises in film programming.