The Hour of the Furnaces (Hora de los hornos), Pt. 1
Octavio Getino & Fernando E. Solanas | Argentina | 90 min. |
16mm | 1968 (projected without sound) | Live musical accompaniment
by Shalabi Effect
“After September 11, 2001, it really seemed like there was
a semantic Crisis Point – an actual, little opening, the
kind that 'artists of dissent' spend their lives dreaming about,
and very few of them (and us) dared or cared enough to step through
it. It was another year and the same song…” Sam Shalabi
The terrorist attack on the World Trade Center almost separated
September 11 from the continuum of history – a traumatic moment
that had no foreseeable cause, or at least none that George W. could
see. A closer look reveals that the date itself has a few historical
precedents: most notably, Chilean President Salvadore Allende’s
suicide after a US-backed coup on September 11, 1973. Maybe not
the same old song, but at least a movement in the same opera. This
performance is an investigation of a date as a crisis point, developing
imaginative connections between artistic resistance to US intervention
in South America thirty years ago and current US intervention in
the Middle East.
Montreal musician Sam Shalabi recently explored “arabophobia”
and his own relationship to dissent and points of origin in his
self-titled CD, Osama (Shalabi’s full given name).
An expansive and angry album, it was one of the more considered
artistic responses to the political climate post-September 11. Hot
on the heels of their new album, Pink Abyss, his collective,
Shalabi Effect, reinterpret The Hour of the Furnaces thirty
years on and in the wake of a new world order.
The Hour of the Furnaces, a collectively produced experimental
documentary about US intervention in Argentina, launched an era
of Third Cinema when it debuted in 1968. A radical and aesthetically
challenging work, the film translated revolutionary fervour into
a dynamic visual narrative. In a high graphic style reminiscent
of Cuban filmmaker Santiago Alvarez, the images and pulse of the
film viscerally challenge political and cultural oppression. From
the opening moments of a police rampage bursting through the night
to the long stare at the face of Che Guevara’s corpse, the
collective energies of Octavio Getino, Fernando E. Solanas and their
filmmaking compatriots produced an angry condemnation of US imperialism.
Shalabi Effect are the perfect foils to perform a live improvised
soundtrack to this seminal film. With a style rooted in collective
improvisation, Alexandre St. Onge, Anthony Seck, Will Eizlini and
Sam Shalabi mix Middle-Eastern modals, cinematic psychedelia, avant-gardist
edge and experimental rock into a stunning live show. Their high
energy and fearless experimentation make them one of the most exciting
Canadian bands around. After eight years and three critically acclaimed
albums, Shalabi Effect finally make their long awaited Toronto debut.
Connecting two forms of artistic resistance to explore what synchronicities
and dissonances appear, Shalabi Effect will work from both sides
of the rupture of September 11, seeing what new forms of expression
this pairing across history can bring.
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