Review: ‘An Oscillating Shadow’
This new film from a Latin American director had its NYC premiere last night at Anthology Film Archives.
Directed by Chilean-Argentinian visual artist Celeste Rojas Mugica, An Oscillating Shadow (Una sombra oscilante) grapples with Chile’s fascist past, made all the more relevant after the country elected a Pinochet apologist this year. An experimental film, it follows Rojas Mugica and her father, a photographer, as they examine their distinct relationship and experiences with photography due to their generational differences. Still images are used as memory, but Rojas Mugica confronts the limitations of the medium. She wonders aloud how much time lapsed between each photograph, what happened between each shot, and the events that might have occurred after the last picture on a roll. Her father captured images of a man being taken away by the police, and she speculates whether bystanders intervened or if they just watched. Decades later, Rojas Mugica returns to the site, observing what has and hasn’t changed, how life has moved on. The incorporation of photography with 16mm and Super 8 creates striking cinematography. The film is inflected with humor while maintaining a reverence for its subject matter, making it a powerful experimental feature-length film from this young Latin American filmmaker.
