On the outskirts of the city, the new modern buildings are silent, the highway bridge hisses. Birds circle in the sky. A young man, hidden by a hooded sweater, is driving an e-scooter on a path in the park. Only the gun slung over his shoulder irritates. Anon Cla’s film portrays an atmosphere of high alert while disaster has already struck. Increasingly drastic scenes play out serenely. The soundtrack to this screaming silence is supplied by a high-tech world: highway, tram, indicator sounds, emergency signals. What the sound backdrop rigidly refuses is to provide a loud release that would resolve the tension. The suburban landscape is steeped in a read, theatrical warning light, blurring limit the view. The 3D computer design veils neither the artificiality nor the computer-based deformation of the images. Normality has become a battle zone where the machine matrix already reigns.

André Eckardt