The Work of Director Chris Cunninghan review

:. Director: Chris Cunninghan
:. Genre: Documentary
:. Running Time: 1:50
:. Year: 2003
:. Country: USA


  


A good way to describe Chris Cunninghan would be to say that he is the visual alter-ego of wacky experimental electronic artist Aphex Twin. Cunninghan's universe is populated with freaks, androgynous creatures and human-like machines, which combined with desaturated tones and epileptic editing, contribute to create a distorted and menacing world that perfectly embodies the vision of the musicians he is associated with.

While his imagery is usually cold and industrial, it varies from the creepy—seeing Aphex Twin as a kid in "Come to Daddy" or as a pimp & woman in "Windowlicker" is equally traumatic—to the robotic—Autechre's "Second Bad Vibel" & Bjorn's "All is full of Love "—, the melancholy—Portishead's "Only You". There are occasional references to movies—Leftfield's "Afrika Shox" and Square Pusher's "Come on my Selector" that play like a homage to Asian horror cinema in the tradition of Hideo Nakata. However, sometimes Cunninghan can create moments of rare beauty as his video of Madonna's "Frozen" can attest.

If you haven't had enough of his twisted collaborations, in the extras there is also an amusing video installation of a robot-monkey playing drums—on an Aphex Twin's soundtrack—as well as the making of Björk's video with an enigmatic interview of the Icelandic diva. However, my favorite extra is "Flex", a video installation featuring the naked bodies of two lovers in a modern under water dance.

Cunninghan's videos, the nightmarish incarnations of the darkest electronic music, are singular enough to have a life of their own.


  Fred Thom


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