Aural Anatomies: Sound, Sex, and Horses in Ann Oren's Piaffe
2024; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 17; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/thr.2024.a918461
ISSN1939-9774
Autores Tópico(s)Theater, Performance, and Music History
ResumoAural Anatomies:Sound, Sex, and Horses in Ann Oren's Piaffe Eileen G'Sell (bio) The swish of a skirt. The whinny of a thoroughbred. Tap shoes trotting down a concrete courtyard. Perhaps no aspect of filmmaking is as quietly overlooked as the art of Foley—the sound effects added in postproduction that make what's onscreen seem as real to our ears as to our eyes. Named for a style of dressage in which a horse prances primly in place, Ann Oren's debut film Piaffe doesn't just embrace the sensual power of Foley and ambient noise but outright fetishizes it. One of the strangest films to come out this year, it is also one of the most sincerely invested in the erotic potential of sound itself—a feature easy to overlook in light of the film's mannered dialogue, lush mise-en-scène, and bold depiction of polymorphic, human-equine sexual arousal. Shot on sumptuous 16 millimeter, Piaffe packs visual power that's nothing to neigh at. Carlos Vasquez's cinematography is saturated with rich jewel tones and verdant greens, each shot meticulously composed to draw our attention to spots of intrigue and relief. The fact that the film's opening shot depicts the eye slots at a giant, antique zoetrope—one that serves as a creaky peep show for, of all things, the unfurling of a fern—alerts us from the beginning that what follows will be offbeat, out of time, and, above all, voyeuristic. Part of the pleasure in this film is watching its characters watch each other—and themselves—while keenly aware that the typical laws of nature do not apply. To be clear, this is a film whose heroine, Eva (Simone Bucio), grows a horse tail. And not just a fountain of brushable hair in the manner of My Little Pony or a Breyer collectible. In its early stages, this horse tail resembles a human phallus jutting right above her bum. The longer the tail grows, its hair flowing down the back of Eva's legs—by the end almost tickling the ground—the friskier and more empowered she becomes. It's a penis-envy antidote on ketamine. Freud would have a (manure-pocked) field day. Dubbed a "wild fable," it is just as much the story of what it means to gain control—over others and oneself—as to willfully cede it. A meek, twenty-something Berliner, Eva is charged with the task of recording the Foley for a mood stabilizer commercial after her "sister" (lover?), Zara, played by nonbinary actor Simon(e) Jaikiriuma Paetau, suffers a nervous breakdown. With the Foley equipment in their shared apartment, Eva tries and fails to [End Page 169] produce the sounds of the movements projected onscreen: scraping a boxing glove with a metal rake, running her fingers through piles of hay, chomping a gold chain with her front teeth. "Are you mute or just dumb?" seethes the ad director after screening her rookie work. Rallying, Eva spends the following afternoon at a stable, carefully studying the horses' noises and caressing a dark Arabian that, like Zara, could be considered her doppelganger. After she recreates the equine sounds in Zara's Foley studio, then emulates their gait at a techno club that night, something in Eva snaps. Tired of being ignored by a female bartender—and everyone, presumably, in her life so far—Eva smashes a shot glass on the counter. "It's on me," the bartender responds sultrily, licking the blood off her finger as she pours a vodka. Eva's will is, evidently, a turn-on. Equili, the antidepressant the commercial advertises, seems a foil for Eva's stifled desires and is represented by the image of a Trakehner horse performing a calm piaffe. "This treatment helps you . . . be aware of your feelings, improving your relationships with others," declares a young woman in voiceover before enumerating an alarming array of side effects. Happiness here is grabbing the reins of one's emotions—emotions of which Eva does yet seem fully conscious, let alone in control. When a little stub rises from the small of her back the morning after the night club, it...
Referência(s)