Red Dawn, A Civilian Remake
Too Good To Be True, On A Fact-Finding Mission With Mark Ward
FORUM BOX 4.6 - 2.7 2010
Red Dawn, A Civilian Remake
The invasionfillm Red Dawn premiered in 1984 showing the United States being occupied by foreign armies. In it scared townspeople are beeing rounded up and taken prisoners, but a group of youngsters (named by a carnivorous North American mammal) want to overcome impossible odds. Led by a war hero they are transformed into sharp shooting freedom fighters and turn the events towards a tale of true nationalist survival. The Wolverines fought a joint Cuban-Soviet army, a present-day remake of the film presents North Korea as the occupier. In 2003 fiction slipped into real life events when the military operation to capture Iraq’s president Saddam Hussein was named Operation Red Dawn - after the film.
The installation Red Dawn, A Civilian Remake is based on an archival image of the aftermaths following an air raid during WWII in Finland. The piece is edited with subliminal cuts altering the photograph and a red surface to the sound of explosive fire. In the feature film an American city awakens to the surreal sight of paratroopers dropping. In Red Dawn, A Civilian Remake a civilian is witnessing a house eaten by flames. The wintry landscape pictured at night emphasizes the hopelessness of the fatal situation and the overwhelming solitude.
The living history & re-enactment society - a non-profit historical and educational organization presents the video
Too Good To Be True, On A Fact-Finding Mission With Mark Ward.
Artist and writer Mark Ward recounts his grandfather’s experiences as a stand-in in a British war movie from the 1940´s. He claims that the movie was never released, as it was not seen to rise up to the post-war standards. The preview audience did not see the film as a heroic picture carrying national values. The images shown as stills from the feature film are documents of British soldiers being given training before heading to the front line. The discernible signs of fear and fatigue show well, but the images also render an ambiguous aesthetic feel. They show scenery, ruins and arcades framing military training, moulding it close to an epic quality of hardship. Other archival images in the video represent Operation Fortitude, a massive deception manoeuvre before the D Day landings, show inflatable lorries and tanks. They were designed as parts of deception strategies including false radio, false troops and false leaders.
Journalist Sean Crowley and artist Mark Ward are filmed in the Anti Aircraft Museum in Tuusula. They discuss how the hardship of civilians is not met as an interesting enough subject matter for war films. The living history & re-enactment society serve as a fictitious commissioner. Societies for re-enactment spread widely making memories part of a new, partly fictitious reality.
Too Good To Be True, On A Fact-Finding Mission With Mark Ward