William Kentridge
History of the Main Complaint was created in 1996, while the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa was investigating the crimes of the apartheid regime. The film combines animated charcoal drawings with medical imagery from CT and MRI scans and tells the story from the perspective of Soho Eckstein, a fictional white mine owner. He lies comatose in hospital, dressed in a suit and tie. While he is being examined, he has an inner journey in a car in which he sees black people being brutally attacked at the side of the road. Red crosses mark their injuries on X-ray images. When his car hits a person who is thrown against the windscreen, Eckstein awakens from his coma. Overcome by memories and feelings of guilt, he must admit to himself the violence that has been committed against Black people. However, amid ringing cash registers and telephones, his return to the executive office casts doubt on the sustainability of this insight.chleudert wird, erwacht Eckstein aus dem Koma. Von Erinnerungen und Schuldgefühlen eingeholt, muss er sich die geschehene Gewalt gegen Schwarze eingestehen. Inmitten klingelnder Kassen und Telefone lässt seine Rückkehr ins Chefbüro jedoch an der Nachhaltigkeit dieser Einsicht zweifeln.
Mine
Date
1991
Material
Charcoal on paper, animated Video, 16mm, 5:56min
Description
William Kentridge makes short animation films from large-scale drawings in charcoal and pastel on paper. The film Mine is set in the devastated landscape south of Johannesburg where derelict mines and factories, mine dumps and slime dams have created a terrain of nostalgia and loss. Kentridge's repeated erasure and redrawing, which leave marks without completely transforming the image, together with the jerky movement of the animation, operate in parallel with his depiction of human processes, both physical and political, enacted on the landscape. Mine was made from eighteen drawings and is set to Dvorak's Cello Concerto in B minor, Opus 104. In it, Kentridge develops the analogy between landscape and mind. A journey into the mines provides a visual representation of a journey into the conscience of Kentridge's invented character, Soho Eckstein, the White South African property owner who exploits the resources of land and Black human labour which are under his domain.
Web presence
Website: https://www.kentridge.studio/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/williamkentridgestudio/