Wrap

Stammering in front of the lens, a man tells of a mishap. The camera records his story, framing his face from very close to, then moving slightly away, then returning to the original close-up of the opening shot. The story then seems to carry on normally. However, without any apparent cut, the scene is shown to us played backwards, then the right way round once again. The loop is repeated in this way three consecutive times, finally giving rise to a false sequence shot lasting three minutes. At the same time, the sound rapidly dissociates itself from the picture. Although at first the monologue carries on normally when the scene is shown backwards, it is subsequently also played backwards or superimposed on the direct sound. This obsessional loop finally ends with the picture suddenly freezing on the character as he closes his eyes, while the sound, completely distorted, has become inaudible. Wrap is a film that stutters. Donigan Cumming amuses himself adapting the language of cinema to his subject in an extreme way. The multiple repetitions give an unexpected dimension to the recorded document. Taking advantage of the usual codes of documentary realism, the film-maker envelops this fragment of reality with a new perspective.

Christian Bovey, Visions du réel, 2002

(translation: Angela Bennet)