“The Danube is the starting point of any military operation, no matter in what direction this is being executed; it is an excellent line of defence, suitable to confront any kind of attack, wherever it may come from...” (Colonel B. Sironi). By using this text to introduce his 'Video document from Budapest', Carlsen gives his work an extra tinge of threat. Even the perfectly ordinary images of women sitting on folding chairs on run-down balconies foster the expectation that something terrible is about to happen. What are they looking at? At the procession that can be heard, but not seen? Is it a procession of only young men with shaved heads whose outward appearance brings the image of skinheads to mind? Or is it rather a commemorative procession of former army heros, old men and women carrying the flag and evoking memories of past times? Or is Carlsen really alluding to something else by the recurring sound of footsteps (only shoes on screen) with in the background the penetrating sound of thumping pile drivers. Carlsen mixes the music and images of the procession with images of slums, barred windows, desolate alleys and broken windows. Why do we see no happy faces? Why are the balconies suddenly empty and we see only full clotheslines and closed curtains now that the procession has passed? The camera seems to be searching, to lose its target and find it again. But all this time it can do no more than insinuate. An alley, footsteps, music and...there are the marchers again. The steel door which lets people through, not on screen, but heard; the repetition of an unintelligible slogan. The camera searches on through the underground tunnels full of graffiti, seeking but not finding... Or does it? 'Gennemtraek' is as exciting as it is confusing because the allusions never become tangible, rather, they call on the imagination.
– Morene Dekker
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Camera: Steen Carlsen, Berndt Jasper, Sound: Rastko Lazic, Editing: Poul Vestergaard, Production: Steen Carlsen/Danish Film Institute
Steen Carlsen ° 1962, Copenhagen (Denmark)
Lives and works in Copenhagen (Denmark)
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