For his residency at MAD, Brooklyn based artist Jesse Hlebo presents a series of free screenings that explore the continuous fluctuation found in the relationship between spontaneity and institutional facilitation. For his cinema program Burning Celluloid Hlebo explores the use of cinema in education, and the theater as classroom.
The theatre is the classroom The screen is the blackboard The teacher has left, we’re all that we have
This week's lesson explores:
The Woman in the Dunes 1964, dir. Hiroshi Teshigahara with Eiji Okada, Kyoko Kishida
An unsuspecting entomologist becomes trapped in a sand dune with a mysterious woman who is engaged in an endless, Sisyphean task of digging sand. Japanese writer Kobo Abe adapts his own novel for the screen under the direction of Hiroshi Teshigahara, who turns this Kafkaesque allegory of existential dread into one of the most unforgettable arthouse films of the 1960s.