IT’S not often that I’m taken aback when viewing alternative media, but this gem of creativity is worthy of the highest respect due to its production standards alone.
I often find myself viewing ‘conspiracy’ flicks and the like with great interest whilst browsing Google video. Not that I’m taken in by all the ideas, but rather that it personally represents that punk attitude to the world that our sterile mass-marketed and centralised media industry has shamefully lost. But it’s not all bad, however (for me, anyway), thanks to the web and the hope that the aforementioned industry will one day bottom-out.
It’s quite difficult to describe Surplus because it transcends any stereotypical genre that currently exists. It’s an art form that portrays reality with visual and lyrical puns interlaced and mixed with interesting music. A kind of MTV and Fahrenheit 911 meets the cinematography experience of Koyaanisqatsi. Made to be easily-digested, yet potent with its simplicity.
As you enter the world of Surplus you find yourself at one of the G8 summits viewing lines of military police walking to a beat of systematic oppression. The sounds and images conjunct into a modern montage that is interlaced with speeches of the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, speaking at the G8 whilst the noise of violence is taking place outside. It then has a delightful chorus of the simple words of John Zerzan - “property damage, property destruction” - and shots of the iconoclasm of some very well known brand names. Finally, it is then finished off with a beautifully choreographed silence and the harsh reality of the fallen Carlo Giuliani, who was shot dead at Genoa in 2001.
From the very start of this presentation you are thrown into the brutality and hypocrisy that exists within the modern democratic capitalist societies of the world; one of fitting-in and being a ‘good consumer’ on the one hand, and of being a ‘good producer’ on the other. In fact, if anything, this 50-minute endeavour is about this relationship. There are some great feasts to be had.
My personal favourites are the doll makers with there very brazen interaction and surreal environment and the adverts that creatively use the chosen ones for there own downfall. In fact there are so many that I don’t want to spoil it for my distinguished readers.
All in all, this peace is one of majestic beauty and questioning reality. It doesn’t and will not say anything that most activists do not already know. It doesn’t try to portray an idea with monologues of fact like a documentary for the purpose of discourse. Instead, it dictates and grabs you, pulls you by your senses into the harsh reality of modern impotency through the use of sounds and visuals. Beautifully timed with great peaks of information that is both visually and sonically outstanding. This is one that should not be missed.
Jim Green lives in South London and is an amateur film-maker with a degree in Art. Readers can view Surplus by going to: "http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=2847664017086328861"
