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DC 389DVD
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"Signer's Suitcase (aka Signers Koffer) is a kind of road movie across Europe -- from the Swiss Alps to eastern Poland, from Stromboli to Iceland. Always following the scenery's magically-charged contours, immersing yourself, letting yourself be infected, then traveling on. And what better traveling companion than the elusive artist Roman Signer? A quiet roommate -- but always with something unexpected up his sleeve. A road trip requires finding the right places. On the road through Signer's Suitcase, Roman Signer brings his chosen spots alive using a variety of tricks from his kit bag, launching brilliantly simple operations with a combination of gunpowder, fuses, rubber boots, balloons, stools, small tables and other seemingly random items. All his endeavors result in a marvelous visual display full of poker-faced humor that has earned him a place on the cover of Gastr del Sol's Upgrade & Afterlife, as well as the sometimes-title, Roman Signer: The Buster Keaton Of Art. Signer's Suitcase is also a journey through a state of mind, a tightrope walk from fun to melancholy. Mental and physical risk promote stimulus of the senses -- and sudden crashes and abrupt changes of mood determine the rhythm and atmosphere of this cinematic journey. Peter Liechti, whose collaboration with Voice Crack, Kick That Habit, was just reissued by Drag City, saw a calling in Roman Signer: 'the preservation of work that so resolutely resists commercial evaluation...or at least the capturing of it photographically, so that in some way it would endure. The sensuality and simple clarity on the one hand as well as this unimpeachable, almost religious being on the other were the challenge of filming Roman Signer's work. On the cinematic journey we made together, Roman Signer in a way dictated the route; the film improvises as we proceed on our way.'" NTSC format; 85 minutes; 4:3; mono, all-region.
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DC 381DVD
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"Kick That Habit is a 1989 film by Peter Liechti, an audio-visual portrait of his native country, eastern Switzerland. The film collects samples from the land-and-soundscape, underscoring in the process the oft-ignored industrial underpinning of our latter-day culture. Also native to eastern Switzerland is Voice Crack, the everyday household electronics duo of Norbert Möslang and Andy Guhl, whose musical workings are explored as part of Liechti's vision. Whether clicking quietly and rhythmically or humming and shrieking at ear-splitting volume, their recycled electronics produce innovative sounds and provide an appropriate accompaniment in this cinematic search for the detritus of our culture, the lost and destroyed remains of the last century of progress. Kick That Habit is a short, tense film comprised of flashing images: footage of Voice Crack rehearsals and concerts is juxtaposed with visual shards of the fall and winter landscape of the area between Alpstein and the Bodensee. Utilizing color and black-and-white footage as well as combining the visual and the acoustic in an expression that subtly synthesizes the two, Liechti delineates a world of existence through sound and geography. Like the world the rest of us live in, it's a world of beauty, quiet tragedy and the endless march forward." NTSC, 42 minutes, 4:3, mono, all-region.
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