The Martlet

Experimental film is always a bit of a toss up.

Last Wednesday, Oct. 14, as a part of the Antimatter film festival, Cinecenta screened Just One Kiss: The Fall of Ned Kelly by Finnish filmmaker Sami Van Ingen.

Van Ingen’s film is a re-creation of the first feature-length film ever created. The film, The Story of the Kelly Gang, was first shown in Melbourne in 1906, and traced the life of legendary Australian bush ranger, Ned Kelly.

“I felt a bit agitated because I wasn’t understanding what was happening,” said third-year anthropology student Kelsey Merkely. “ At the same time, I was still able to enjoy some of the images.”

Perhaps the confusion comes from the fact that only the first and last scene of Just One Kiss: The Fall of Ned Kelly were from the original film. A few years after the The Story of the Kelly Gang was originally screened in Austrialia the whole film was somehow lost. About 10 minutes of footage has since been found.

Van Ingen’s project was to use the little remains of the original footage and to recreate the rest.

“It’s like when archaeologists use bones to find out what kind of creature they’re looking at,” said Van Ingen, after the screening. “The found footage was our bones.”

Van Ingen did, though, have a few clues to help him create his film. He knew that the original movie was 4,000 feet long, so he made his own film the exact same length. A copy of The Story of the Kelly Gang program also survived, containing a synopsis of the film which helped Van Ingen and other historians imagine what the original film may have been like.

“When people got bored of The Story of the Kelly Gang in Australia, they would add another scene to keep people coming to see it,” said Van Ingen.

“That’s why this film has new footage at every screening.”

Silent films from the early part of the 20th century often incorporated live music. Cinecenta’s screening of Just One Kiss film featured West coast musician Lee Hutzulak creating a soundtrack with a synthesizer, turntable, prepared CD-Rs, field recordings and an assortment of other amplified objects.

Van Ingen uses local musicians in every city he shows Just One Kiss, and he met Hutzulak for the first time only a few days before the screening.

“It’s up to the musician to do what they want to do with the film,” said Van Ingen. “It’s quite exciting because you never know what’s going to happen.”

The Antimatter film festival revels in the experimental film genre and audience confusion is inevitable.

“When we show experimental films to people who are used to a narrative, they can get upset, and that’s understandable because they’re not used to this kind of language,” said Van Ingen. “I’m playing with the whole idea of cinematic language and what happens to the relationship between viewer and film.”