Piaffe, 2022
Directed by Ann Oren
Starring Simone Bucio, Sebastian Rudolph, Simon[e] Jaikiriuma Paetau
SYNOPSIS:
When their sibling Zara suffers a nervous breakdown, the introvert Eva is forced to take on Zara’s job as a Foley artist. Then, a horsetail starts growing out of their body.
Visual artist and filmmaker Ann Oren’s debut feature Piaffe showcases a sensual and erotically charged journey through a surreal sexual awakening. Sensual, beguiling and dreamlike, the film has a mesmeric quality about it linked to a keen understanding of the power of moving images.
The subject of foley artists who add real-life sounds to a film’s soundtrack recalls the darkly humorous tone of Peter Strickland’s 2012 film Berberian Sound Studio. In Oren’s treatment of the intriguing occupation, a similar curious obsessive quality is combined with the exertion of getting the sound just right.
Into this world steps the introverted Eva (Simone Bucio). Tasked with covering for their sister as a foley on a new big-pharma antidepressant commercial starring a horse, Eva is determined to do the best work possible.
Sister Zara (played by non-binary artist Simon(e) Jaikiriuma Paetau) is recovering from a breakdown in the hospital– a surreal version of a faculty with seriously odd staff running proceedings. There is an intimation that everyone is involved in a drug takeover involving terms such as NeurOasis and Equili. But as with much of the movie, it plays on a Lynchian kind of dynamic where the less that is explained the better.
Eva’s dedication to creating the ideal equine sounds transfers into a literal physical signifier of their efforts. A new appendage of a horse’s tail appears along with a growing confidence and awareness of their own surroundings. Erotic dances of submission and domination ensue, interlaced with sci-fi flashes of the drug’s Orwellian instructions for wellness.
Shot on 16mm film, Piaffe is a memorably weird tale of finding one’s own identity and creating the reality that one wants to be a part of. Cinema is a real winner here, with early images and haunting sounds referenced throughout.
Oren displays an assured understanding of the power of audio. Not only with the neighing, whinnying and clip-clopping of the horses but also in the hushed tones of Eva on the phone to demanding, abrasive clients. The s + m power play involving Dr. Novak ( Sebastian Rudolph) the botanist lustily whispering about ferns and enthusiastically stroking the new tail is also treated with the same audio expertise.
A key line is offered by Novak when they talk some more about ferns, explaining that they are gametophytes, capable of producing both sperm and eggs. “Our concepts of male and female are insufficient to understand ferns,” as he puts it.
As well as these semi-whispered observations, there is also a dynamic use of club music and repetitive beats strikingly presented across night-time adventures.
Piaffe does not have a clear trajectory, and to my mind, benefits from this. What it does have is a magical dream that helps to build up a changeable and dynamic space. It is a celebration of queerness in every sense of the word.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert W Monk
