Single-channel video installation
2018 | HDV | Black-and-white | Sound | 20" | English
The Eternal Return explores the phenomenon of how a performer of colour such as international actor Sabu might be treated and thought of in a way analogous to the animals with whom he appears. In Sabu’s case this was the conflation of his background as mahout son’s with his career as actor that imposed a seemingly inescapable relationship with elephants: the animals recur throughout his filmography. It also highlights how, in spite of his extraordinary fame Sabu was always the sidekick and never the love interest. With the use of a combination of live-action dramatised recreation and British Pathé stock footage re-edited and altered with VFX, The Eternal Return revisits the now-struggling Sabu in 1951 as he supports his family by performing – once more with a troupe of elephants – in Tom Arnold’s Christmas Circus in Haringey Arena.
2018 | HDV | Black-and-white | Sound | 20" | English
The Eternal Return explores the phenomenon of how a performer of colour such as international actor Sabu might be treated and thought of in a way analogous to the animals with whom he appears. In Sabu’s case this was the conflation of his background as mahout son’s with his career as actor that imposed a seemingly inescapable relationship with elephants: the animals recur throughout his filmography. It also highlights how, in spite of his extraordinary fame Sabu was always the sidekick and never the love interest. With the use of a combination of live-action dramatised recreation and British Pathé stock footage re-edited and altered with VFX, The Eternal Return revisits the now-struggling Sabu in 1951 as he supports his family by performing – once more with a troupe of elephants – in Tom Arnold’s Christmas Circus in Haringey Arena.
The Eternal Return (2019) is a part of the Dissolution Trilogy as part of MattFlix Archive. The trilogy comprises House of Women (2017), The Fruit is There to be Eaten (2018), and The Eternal Return (2019). The films form part of Williams Gamaker’s series on Fictional Activism, which explores British studio films made during empire.
MattFlix presented Michelle Williams Gamaker’s film trilogy Dissolution in August 2021, shown here in full.
www.mattsgallery.org/mattflix/the-dissolution-trilogy
MattFlix presented Michelle Williams Gamaker’s film trilogy Dissolution in August 2021, shown here in full.
www.mattsgallery.org/mattflix/the-dissolution-trilogy