Artavazd Pelechian - Nas Vek aka Our Century (1982)

Our Century is a masterful montage of archive footage of space travel, edited with images from the beginnings of manned flight.

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A metaphysical meditation on the conquest of space, failed blast-offs, imminent catastrophes, Icarus' dream exploited by both Russia and America and the fate of the astronaut... Our Century, a black and white film made in 1982, is considered a major work of auteur cinema.

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A man paves his own way to his own soul through an intellectual quest, tragedies of nations and personal drama. The road moving through the cosmic distances is a flight into one's internal world. This flight and this drama are revealed in this philosophical film-poem.

Quote:

Toujours des processions, à la gloire de " notre siècle ", toujours cette impression d'une menace qui ne se dit pas, d'une rumeur qui se manifeste, mais ne s'incarne pas ; notre siècle, on ne l'oubliera pas, c'est le siècle des conquêtes et des génocides, le siècle de toutes les vanités aussi : les hommes vont y faire l'épreuve de toutes leurs prétentions. Ils lutteront contre les déterminismes de la nature, fabriqueront leur légende à coup de travestissements, de protocoles intimidants, d'audaces et d'entêtements, pour ne laisser en guise de témoignage que quelques images qui redisent, inlassablement, l'absurdité de cette vocation instinctive et totalitaire à la colonisation et à l'occupation des mondes.

" Longue méditation sur la conquête de l'espace, les mises à feu qui ne vont nulle part, le rêve d'Icare encapsulé par les Russes et les Américains, le visage défait par l'apesanteur des cosmonautes accélérés, la catastrophe qui n'en finit pas de venir. "
(Serge Daney, Libération, 11 août 1983).












Artavazd A. Peleshian studied cinema at the VGIK (Cinematic Institute of Moscow) in the 1960s. It was not until later in his career that his films were recognized abroad, thanks to French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard who became his first and most ardent supporter. Today considered as one of the most important filmmakers of our time, he received the Scam Prize for Television for his whole work in 2000.
Inventor of an experimental "un-editing" technique, Peleshian threw aside the conventional rules of cinematography with his own contrapuntal editing. " Confronted with two important shots, the carriers of meaning, I do not try to bring them together, nor to confront them, but rather to create a distance between them..."
Through this contrapuntal editing process, Peleshian creates an original circular type of film radically renewing the art of cinema.

http://rapidshare.com/files/130108585/Mer_dare.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/130108665/Mer_dare.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/130108677/Mer_dare.part3.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/130108884/Mer_dare.part4.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/130113832/Mer_dare.part5.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/130113856/Mer_dare.part6.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/130109738/Mer_dare.part7.rar

no pass