|
'Ganapati/A Spirit in the Bush' is a video production in which the vexed relationship between man and animal is recounted. Over the course of time mankind has come to regard the animal as an emotionless consumer object instead of a valuable fellow inhabitant of our planet. The human relationship with the elephant serves as an illustration for this grim reminder. Shot in Kenya, India and Thailand, with additional film material from various archives, Daniel Reeves has wrought an impressive, moving epic. The video is sub-titled thoughout with a poetic text which in plain language recounts the fate of the animal at the hand of mankind. The mythical quality of the elephant is placed in the context of its role as a beast of burden, circus attraction and laboratory animal. The script is interpolated as much with religiously tinged phrases about the elephant in which it is represented as spirit or deity, as evidence of its destruction and Reeves's related vision.
–
Marie-Adèle Rajandream
|
Editing: Daniel Reeves, Sound: Debra Schweitzer, Linda Garwood, Production: CAT Fund/Shakti, Texts: Daniel Reeves, Rudyard Kipling, R.M. Rilke, Chief Seattle, F. Garcia Lorca
|
|
1 9 8 7 
