Ne travaille pas (1968-2018)

Did you ever wonder about the times when you weren’t assaulted on a minutely basis with images you’d be better off not having seen? What was it like half a century ago when photos like Ronald Haeberle’s taken at My Lai could touch people and turn the tide on a war – with the wiser ones like Guy Debord already sensing the Society of Spectacle ahead? How could things turn so drastically so quickly: in roughly two-third of an average European person’s lifetime? But also: What is left of May ’68, the very real changes these happenings brought about? As César Vayssié’s previous trouble stunner UFE (Un Film Événement) (2016) already suggested: straight answers should not be expected from Ne travaille pas (1968-2018). Two art school students grappling with love and lust while searching for ways to make performance matter politically in the face of netland’s incessant opinion and image cyclone simply can’t have answers, only intuitions and intimations – now here’s a difference between 1968 and 2018; and one more: The intuitive-feeling, sometimes fleeting, at other times assault-happy shape of Ne travaille pas (1968-2018), an idea of cinema even the avant-garde was barely on to then. (Viennale)