Pierre Huyghe, (Untitled) Human Mask, 2014
tag tema
To understand “Human Mask” there’s two things you need to know: first of all, in Japan there are some restaurants where monkeys wait tables (sounds like fun, right?); second, the film was shot in Fukushima, a town that became deserted after 2011 tsunami and the following nuclear accident. The protagonist of the film is a monkey, dressed with its waiter uniform, wearing a white human mask and a wig made of long brunette hair. If it weren’t for its hairy paws it would really look like a small girl. This weird character wanders around the empty rooms of the restaurant, watches its own paws, caresses its fake hair, unaware of wearing a mask and lost in a timeless space. Huyghe overturns a situation that could be funny transforming it in a disturbing one, that leaves us distressed, anguished, and ipnotized in front of the screen.
)
