SHORT FILM PROGRAMME #1 – REPETITIOUS MOVEMENTS
Soon after joining Svensk Experimentfilmstudio, Weiss started making his own short films, beginning with the Studies black-and-white shorts. Studie I shows a man and a woman waking up in an apartment, with a focus on the body and its gestures, and the repetitiveness of the human condition. Weiss continued his study of the human body in Studie II but rendered it in a more fragmentary way, depicting the awkwardness of interacting with others. Studie III cuts between a man (Weiss himself ) descending a flight of stairs without ever arriving, and a man (again Weiss) carrying another man/himself (Weiss, again) to the complete oblivion of others; a gripping study of what it means to be a human being.
In the latter half of the 1950s, Weiss incorporated aspects of documentary into his films. Ansikten i skugga portrays ragged men waking up in the street or in shelters in Stockholm. The film was shot by celebrated stills photographer Christer Strömholm, and depicts members of society who were forgotten, hidden, and left behind in Sweden’s social democratic transition into a modern society. Then followed Ingenting ovanligt, a film made for the Swedish association of insurance companies. The narrative of the film, a road accident followed by the notification of the next of kin, is rendered only by highlighting certain details of the event, and Weiss used this commission to create an artistic vision of Stockholm and its inhabitants.

Jon Wengström