Walk (1980) is a diaristic work that centres on observation of oneself and the urban environment, where De Bruyn attempts to film his face, his feet and his shadow as he walks with his camera through the suburban spaces of an Australian city. It was shot on negative film at a speed of two frames per second, much of it developed by hand, creating printing effects—twisting and solarization—that give this work a disturbing spectrality. The film is a response to the overwhelming alienation the filmmaker experienced as an emigrant in the suburbs of Melbourne.
Conversations with my Mother (1990) occupies a unique position in De Bruyn’s filmography and is set apart from most of his films by its complete lack of visual effects. This film, in dialogue form, is one of his longest works and documents the meeting between the director and his mother during which the traumatic years of his childhood are relived.
Traum A Dream (2003) is his first finished work in digital video. It is a dense, frenetic multidimensional collage that encompasses various work processes such as automatic writing, sound poetry and abstract animation in an attempt to address the traumatic memory of the abuse he suffered as a child. The film establishes connections both with the more tactile direct cinema and with the visual music and phonetic poetry of Kurt Schwitters.
Dirk de Bruyn: Walk, 1980, 16mm, no sound, 20 min.; Conversations with my Mother, 1990, 16mm, 100 min., original version with Catalan subtitles; Traum A Dream, 2002, 16mm to digital, 7 min., original version with Catalan subtitles.
Copies provided by Light Cone. Thanks to Dirk de Bruyn.
