Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
Fred, London
11 January – 12 February
Reviewed by: Tom Morris
Describing a film by Stuart Croft is usually a many-worded task, and can threaten any writer’s word count, but thankfully one needn’t mince words with Century City: the plot is all rather inconsequential here. Nevertheless, let me run it past you. South African detective Nancy Delport is investigating the murder of a young actor, and is on the phone to the actor’s father, TV-movie director Peter Kashlin. You’ll notice that this plot is more ‘Odeon’ than you might expect of Croft, and the characterisation is equally as textbook Hollywood. Delport, the detective, is detached and probing, and sips coffee in her high-rise office, an immense, nocturnal metropolis behind her. Kashlin is just as formulaic as the ballsy “gimme a coffee” LA honcho. Indeed, this is as tritely generic as any Morgan Freeman-led whodunit gets.
The duologue is divided up, the two characters facing each other on opposite walls of the gallery: and it is through this screening device that you first begin to notice Croft breaking away from the repetitive nature of the average Hollywood crime thriller, yet simultaneously exercising its codes. This is cinema about cinema. More to the point though, this is (anti-)narrative about narrative. Disqualifying the traditional logic that Hollywood ordinarily demands – that of the beginning, middle and the end – Century City runs on a continuous loop, therefore abandoning all the expected essentials of sense, sequence and conclusion. There are no blackouts or curtains-down to signal the termination of the film. Instead, the end of one lap covertly and seamlessly meets back up with its beginning every nine minutes. It is only when you recognise a familiar scratching of the temple or the capping of a biro that you realise you’ve seen this all before, and that you’re back at the beginning; or the end – who can say?
Every run is a little more interesting than the last: each time something new reveals itself. For example, one notices that the office in which Delport sits is actually being constructed in the film opposite. At one point, Kashlin sits in the exact same chair and drinks from her coffee cup whilst set designers construct her nocturnal cityscape behind her. It’s all rather maddening, actually. Not only is there the blurry reverberation of a dodgy sound system to contend with (the dialogue indistinctly ping-ponging around in a cacophonic but well-timed mess) but also the fact that you are locked in this incessant, man-made and addictive world of Film Noir sleuthery, without any suggested time to make your exit. It’s a broken record that never gets round to playing the chorus. Croft fights repetition with repetition and coaxes the viewer into reliving this addictive, nine-minute Deja Vu until the cinema – sorry, gallery – shuts its doors for the night.
Writer detail:
Tom Morris is a freelance art critic.
Venue detail:
FRED Ltd
45 Vyner Street, London E2 9DQ
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