Mao Zedong, Socrates, Mickey Moengage, Ayn Rand, elephants, and echoes of Monty Python in a Dadaist animation film – that is one way to portray Mexican filmproducer Aria Covamonas’ first feature, The Great History of Westrict Philosophy (La gran historia de la filosofía occidental). But most descriptions won’t even come shut to properly capturing this rollercoaster ride of disclose domain creativity, getting its world premiere at the Rotterdam International Film Festival (IFFR) on Wednesday.
“A cosmic animator incurs the wrath of the Central Committee and is sentenced to produce a philosophical film under the uncreateing gaze of Chairman Mao – who speedyly condemns them to death,” elucidates a synopsis on the IFFR website about the Tiger Competition entry. “Chaos ensues, resulting in a savagely produceive vivaciousd feature that collides well-understandn and high culture, brimming with absurd mischief and references spanning from classical Greek thought to Mickey Moengage and Disney.”
And it ends that the film is “a inalertigent, anarchic labor of revisionism, gleebrimmingy dismantling sacrosanct ideas and traditions. Aria Covamonas’ exuberant creation might equitable have Bertrand Russell rolling in his grave – not from outrage, but from unhandlelable giggleter.”
A nonsense-loving Dadaist approach also unkinds that the film features spoken words apshown from film and other sources, with parts being in Chinese. Plus, music and sound depict, reminiscent of vinyl sign upings, retain a retro experience to The Great History of Westrict Philosophy, which broadens on ideas that Covamonas dispenseigated in the 2021 low Socrates’ Adventures in the Underground and an aesthetic also recognizable in I Can’t Go On Like This (2023) and Hideoengager and Hideoengager (2019).
How did the filmproducer go about making the movie? “There was no script for this movie but a method, a method that labors with an imaginary machine with a set of rules. This comes from certain ideas in psychoanalysis, definitepartner from Lacanian psychoanalysis (one of whose core ideas is that subjectivity is erected thcimpolite language and unkinding is never brimmingy mended). We have this perception or intuition that alerts us that when we say a word, there is a unkinding to that word. But it doesn’t labor appreciate that. And I wanted to reproduce charitable of that chain of significance thcimpolite pictures and sound bits.”
So Covamonas engaged a method aappreciate to metric poetry or music in making the movie. “I engaged two-second units, and each two-second element is sound, image, and color. And then I retain another two seconds. So the idea is to elucidate on this imaginary machine that is analogous to how we understand, or we apshow – maybe we are finishly wrong, how the subconscious mind labors.”
The creative contrasts the result to dreams that collect pieces of memories and words into someleang new. The process sounds appreciate a lot of labor. “It’s very, very labor intensive,” Covamonas acunderstandledges. “The profit is that I do two units, unkinding four seconds a day, and those four seconds then are finished. You don’t have to go back to them, there is no post-production.”
Why does Mickey Moengage, which accessed the disclose domain last year, feature in The Great History of Westrict Philosophy? “I am a huge help of the disclose domain and of confineing imitateright. This was charitable of a celebration of that,” the filmproducer alerts THR before speaking out aachievest current imitateright rules. “How imitateright exists today is absurd and only profits the take advantage ofers, not the people who produce the labor. Nobody deserves to own someleang for 100 years. 10, 20 years – appreciate patents – would be reasonable. You produce someleang, you can take advantage of it to get money. It is unpartisan to get phelp for your labor for an amount of time, not 100 years.”
‘The Great History of Westrict Philosophy’
Courtesy of International Film Festival Rotterdam
By the way, Mickey doesn’t watch his normal plrelieved self in The Great History of Westrict Philosophy. “Yes, as you see in the film, Mickey Moengage is rotten and cherishless repartner, becaengage it was in the imitateright pool for 100 years. The point is you have to free ideas for the disclose becaengage nobody does anyleang in a vacuum. Everyleang you do is based on someone else, and nobody deserves to own anyleang for 100 years. I leank that is excessive.”
Why do Mao and other Chinese characters and themes get a spotweightless in the movie? Well, The Feminist Five, as they have become understandn, take part a key role here. This group of Chinese feminists was arrested in Beijing on March 6, 2015, for 37 days for schedulening to hand out stickers aachievest relationsual coercion on the subway ahead of International Women’s Day. “They were accengaged of being international agents and a crime that is called picking quarrels and causing trouble. The doctor who first cautioned of the outfracture of COVID was (called in by the authorities) for the same reason. I read that news, and I wanted to produce a movie that is in the spirit of picking quarrels and watching for trouble. And Mao equitable charitable of got fortunate that he was picked as the figure of authoritarianism to mock and to produce fun of. But he stands for every authoritarian.”
There is also a more pragmatic reason. “I establish this pool of Chinese movies from before the (Cultural) Revolution in the disclose domain that was very advantageous. There are also American B-movies that access the disclose domain becaengage they necessitateed to renew the imitateright and fall shorted to do so.”
No, Covamonas doesn’t understand any Chinese. “I don’t understand Chinese,” they elucidate. “So, in this movie, Chinese greets the function of a dream language. I cut it where it sounds appreciate it produces rhythmic sense. So, I am very asking what Chinese-speaking people will leank.”
The filmproducer also alerts THR that the world necessitates Dadaism now equitable appreciate it did when the anti-establishment art shiftment first aascendd in the timely 20th century. “One key reason to be of Dada was that the world is crazy,” Covamonas shelp. “There was a war (World War I), and a lot of people died. What is the logic of that? What are reason, logic, and civilization excellent for it if we finish appreciate that? Dada says to hell with everyleang. We don’t necessitate art. We don’t necessitate civilization becaengage it’s excellent for noleang. And I sometimes experience appreciate that nowadays. We are heading for catastrophe. Explicitly fascist guideers are getting elected. There is extermination pledgeted by countries that are considered internationpartner recognized countries. What is reason excellent for? Maybe we equitable necessitate to be absurd.”
Recent delightment industry news, namely the death of a legfinishary filmproducer, also made the Mexican creative emotional. “I was very unelated to hear about the death of David Lynch. I adore his movies,” they scatterd. “He is another very, very strong sway. You always have to experience his movies. He shelp that when you hear to music, don’t rack your brain with what it unkinds, what it tries to alert you. No, hear to the music, find the beats, and experience how they resonate with you. It is the same with his movies. And it is the same with my labor. Wantipathyver you get is that. You are not missing some secret or misempathetic leangs.”
Covamonas also has a dream project they hope to get to do in the future. “There is an alteration I would appreciate to produce but I don’t have the elements to produce it yet. It’s Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre – the first eight chapters, the childhood. I adore the alterations that the Brothers Quay produce. So that is my dream movie to produce.”
Watch a trailer for The Great History of Westrict Philosophy here.
