Educational Media Reviews Online

An extravaganza of sights, sounds, and film techniques, The Grand Bizarre is a feast of stunning visuals featuring textiles. Time lapse photography juxtaposes the textiles with elements of nature and travel, creating a heady mix of unnarrated visual splendor.

The soundtrack is a mixture of ambient nature sounds, electronic music, and industrial noises. Fast paced editing creates the illusion of textiles as animate objects; sheer fabrics billow in the wind near the ocean, side and rearview mirrors in cars are used as screens as images of boldly patterned fabrics cycle through. Fabrics slither up and down stair wells, clothes lines filled with cloth move back and forth, folded stacks of textiles ride on ferries and trains.

Instead of being displayed on human bodies or being used in a utilitarian manner, fabric is combined with travel and transportation imagery--globes, airplanes, motorbikes, maps, tractors, ferries, trains. Fabrics mimic birds in flight and ocean waves, and ride on escalators and airport conveyer belts. All of these shots combine to showcase movement and the passage of time.

At times the textiles are filmed slowly in tight close-up, so much so that you can see individual threads of cloth sticking out. Other times the shots fly by so fast you can’t focus on one fabric, they’re all just a blur of riotous color and pattern. These filmmaker choices raise the question: Is the film’s title a play on words between bizarre and bazaar?

As an example of experimental storytelling, this film leaves conclusions about meaning and intent entirely up to the viewer. In addition to film studies and art/design fields, The Grand Bizarre is recommended for visual communication and other specializations within communication studies.

Awards:
Official Selection, San Francisco International Film Festival; Official Selection, Locarno Film Festival; Official Selection, Toronto International Film Festival; Official Selection, AFI Fest

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