Close up of a doll with a child's face, a 'smiley' painted on it, a voice addressing his father, Ezra, inviting him to go on a journey. A journey to the past? “Take a rest and let me tell you the story”. The journey is by schooner, travelling across the Atlantic Ocean, but this journey is also the symbol for a journey to a lost time and a descent into the psyche. “The ship pops through the vortex”. Found footage joins historical images of the illustrious sailor's life to images of Freud, lobotomy, brain tests and Rorschach tests. In this way an obvious allusion is being made to psychiatry and madness. The journey with the 'Black Swan' is a perilous undertaking and it is unclear whether the ship will ever reach its destination. The waves are high. The dead tipped overboard. The 'guest list' is checked once again. Who and what, other than the narrator and his father, Ezra, are on board? Mainly medicine such as Thorazine and cocaine which are used primarily in psychiatry. The medicine should help make merry “inside the voices”. The travellers throw themselves into Niagara Falls before they reach their final destination. The New York skyline looms up on the horizon when Tony with his father, Ezra, and the wooden doll with its 'smiley' have made the crossing. On the back of Tony's shaved head the same 'smiley' can be seen, as though the past is being smiled at. It is time for a Halloween party because everyone is saved, although no-one is healed.
– Willem van Weelden
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Camera: Tony Allard, Kristine Diekman, Sound: Dwight Frizzel, Tony Allard, Music: Dwight Frizzel, Eric George, Durg Ditty & Dull Drums, John Gleason, Schloss Tegal, Editing: Tony Allard, Kristine Diekman, Production: Fossil Media
Tony Allard ° 1957, Topeka (USA)
Lives and works in San Diego (USA)
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