MACIEJ ĆWIEK STOMP (1984)

Director: Maciej Ćwiek

Year: 1984

Time: 7 mins

Music: Krzesimir Debski

Eye of Sound: Ćwiek's debut as a director is an intriguing showcase of collage elegance and rhythmical acuity achieved through apparently simple techniques, its meaning being perhaps as elusive as the piece is visually engaging. Initially reminiscent of Len Lye's early experiments with film scratch, Stomp quickly dives into a black and white parade of almost self-contained beautiful visual print compositions . Time and individuality seem to be the main thematic issues at work, as we are drawn to watch the gradual coming together of a fragmented and incomplete self along a very literal diachronic line. Fingerprints, foot plants, faces and loose letters (perhaps alluding to unformed names) seem to climb the stairs of the construction of selfhood, these staircases being analogous to the timeline that anxiously takes the screen throughout most of Stomp. Krzesimir Debski's musical accompaniment is an uncanny blend of faux-jazz and "library" soundworks interspersed with dramatic atonal sketches that render Stomp an even more unclassifiable piece.

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STOMP