Twelve Tales Told

Johann Lurf returns to the frenetic structural analysis of found footage with Twelve Tales Told. A dozen logos for Hollywood production companies play before you as they would precede a normal Hollywood production; appropriately in 3D if watching digitally, in 2D on 35mm – and self-aggrandizing in any format. Only, each logo sequence, some animated with glossy grandeur (Disney, Paramount), some more restrained (Regency, Warner Bros.), is stutteringly interwoven image by image into the others, beginning with the longest and ending with the shortest. (…) Lurf repurposes the iconography and production values of Hollywood literally as a digital brand rather than, as in traditional found footage films, Hollywood as a producer of photographic images. The visual omnipotence of these companies – the insistent onslaught of their recurring brand imagery – and the accompanying aggressive musicality of their chopped up soundtracks are integrated and combined into a singular, homogenized mega-brand thundering HOLLYWOOD. Who needs stories when the brands create their own? (Daniel Kasman)