"It's not done to say oh yes!"
16MM Film
Colour, Silent
3' 50"
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An eleven year old Palestinian boy wearing a prayer shawl and carrying
a toy gun runs through Whitechapel Market like an imagined freedom fighter.
The film is a long tracking shot through the market, which leads to intermittent
loss of the protagonist from the image as shoppers get in the way. Nobody
seems to be paying too much attention to the boy.
This may be becuase they are not interested in what he represents, or
becuase they are aware that this is simply an (unreal) representation
- a film being made as they shop.
As with the film "Aizkolari", the protagonist performs his difference
- a simple mock-up of a strong national identity - while being dispaced
in multicultural London, and unsure of the strength, or truth, of this
percieved identity in the first place.
Both protagonists create an expecation of danger, and political turbulence
- this turbulence is uprooted and placed in a very different context.
There is the sense that it becomes meaningless, or just confused, in this
context; a million miles away from our everyay life, sticking out like
a sore thumb but at the same time, ignored.
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