Artisten (The Artist) by Jonas Grimås

It was in 1987 when I was a Literature student at this girls' college back home, that a professor from another university visited us. He read a poem about a train (not his, I remember that) and held up this black and white picture of a train winding up a hill, with trees on either side of the tracks, as he read it. ( We did not have TV)The reading wasn't that rhythmic, but I fell in a trance imagining that train as it chugged its way round the bend, and up the hill, "smoking" all the way. I could see the green of the trees, the blue of the greyish blue of the skies, and above all, hear the rhythm of the train.

There is a romance about trains, and the people who travel on those, and no wonder they have been used in movies and songs and commercials and fashion shoots. Murders take on more mystery, forbidden love gets spicier -- all in that rarefied ambience of trains. Be it the Murder on the Orient Express, or that Vogue shoot with an exotic Diddy and his lady, or the latest Chanel ad with Audrey Tatou, trains and train stations thrill us. And it is the same for me.

Artisten

But add to that, my fatal fascination with the blurring of boundaries -- between realities, the real and the unreal, between genres, between art and life -- I will get hooked. That is what I felt when I saw this short movie named  Artisten, by Jonas Grimås made in 1987. What I saw in my classroom back then, and what I see now in this movie, I should say it has been a gradual journey that has reached a particular culmination. The journey won't end here, surely.  Obviously I am sure much has been written about this brilliant, award winning movie by many and much better qualified people than me. But these are my thoughts.

The Artist is about the blurring of boundaries. In a way, it is  a metamovie, a movie which explores the making of a movie.The synchronous art of the foley artist-hero, and the movie he was showing, is captivating.The final explosion in the movie within the movie, and in the theatre fittingly tops it. This movie is layered and the themes are so many that it makes you think on so many different levels -- an embarrassment of riches, as they say. It is a big, short movie. I cannot get that artist out of my mind, the passion, and the belief. Nothing is beyond bounds for him. Not at all worried about going overboard! He does it with panache. Nor can I forget the would-be artist. There is a sadness and a humor in both the persons that touch one. Do I imagine that sadness? Am I coloring it with my feelings?In moments of self-doubt, which are many, by the way, I think I am that person. Of course I want to be the hero, but will I ever?They are pathetic and heroic at the same time, like us. Maybe I am way off mark in my understanding of the film, but I guess the movie is in the mind of the viewer now.
see the film here : http://vimeo.com/17857824

may 17  2011 update : there seems to be something to the name? another "Artist" is making waves in Cannes! I think i should call myself "The Artist" -- maybe that would help! ;)