The Horse, the Violin and a Little Bit Nervous

01/01/1991

Irina Evteeva’s debut quickly became a kind of manifesto for the one-room experimental studio: it defines classification by interweaving animation, appropriated footage, feature and documentary to form a unique whole, a film that rushes backwards into the future, thereby re-inventing Futurism. Mayakovskiy is the star; his occasional presence holds together a film driven by the sound, the beat, of his poetry. Evteeva develops a dramatic structure of flaring, fading, being from light: violin strings become rays, quivering dull yellow spots, pictures. The plot assails the material from which it derives energy from material. History, growling and roaring, finds its form.