A commonly known quirk of everyone’s favourite fauna, the flamingo, is that they sleep standing on one leg, their necks rolled back, heads beneath their wings. For all those whose faint disbelief discredited the quirkiness of these sleeping beauties, Gusmão and Paiva have shot this flick. Flamingos are flamboyant even when frozen. This 2,000-frames-per-second film (meaning super-slow-motion) encourages skeptical viewers to find even the smallest movement fascinating. There couldn’t be further atonement for stillness. Weirdly though, these feathered figures adopt featureless features, resembling less and less what we think they should look like. Frankly, this film is as tedious as a sculpture. Flamingo. Flamingo. Flamingo..
About João Maria Gusmão
João Maria Gusmão (*1979) is known for practices and meta-practices ranging from experimental film to photography, sculpture, drawing, literature and curating.
