The first few minutes of Sandy Amerio\u2019s film DRAGOONED1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 1 <\/a> - DRAGOONED<\/em>, a documentary by Sandy Amerio, France, 45 min., 2012. Produced by Sandy Amerio, Khiasma, and Olivier Marboeuf. Co-produced by the \u00c9cole sup\u00e9rieure des beaux arts de Nantes M\u00e9tropole (www.dragooned.org).<\/span> (2012) situate the viewer in familiar terrain\u200a\u2014\u200athat of archival footage, specifically, a series of newsreelscalled \u201cUnited News,\u201d produced between 1942 and 1946 by the U.S. Office of War Information. This government agency managed propaganda and promoted patriotism in order to convince Americans of the necessity and validity of the war being waged across the Atlantic.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Black-and-white images with a classic voice-over;2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 2 <\/a> - Lemmy Constantine: singer, actor, and voice-over artist (www.lemmyconstantine.fr).<\/span> film stock showing the effects of time; blurred, shaky images taken by a shoulder-held camera\u200a\u2014\u200athe sounds and images in these propaganda scenes conjure up a heroism belonging to a distant past. Viewers readily accept that they are watching a historical documentary relating a little-known event from the Second World War: the capture of Le Muy in 1944 by the American soldiers of the 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But this viewing position is suddenly disrupted by a rewind effect: the images on the screen become colourized and are re-shown in reverse, going back in time. It is the first in a long series of disruptions\u200a\u2014\u200athe voice-over that initially provided jingoistic commentary takes on a life of its own, switching from American English to French, while surreptitiously adopting the familiar modulations of television narrative style. The voice mutates, becoming contemporary and autonomous, abandoning its former register to become increasingly personal. The voice is now present<\/em> in the texture of these images from the past. It feeds off them and casts doubt on the scenes unfolding in reverse, undoing the viewer\u2019s initial impression, dispelling the illusion: this archival footage is not what it seemed to be. Viewers who thought they were on solid ground are suddenly disoriented, having to adjust their perspective according to a new set of codes. It is precisely this disorienting effect that Sandy Amerio is after: \u201cStories where there is a reversal, where what you thought you were seeing turns out to be completely different from what is actually happening.\u201d3<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 3 <\/a> - All quotes, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from an interview conducted by the author with Sandy Amerio in December 2012. Available at: www.zerodeux.fr.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n
From the outset, the artist intended DRAGOONED<\/em> to be a \u201ccamouflage film,\u201d where viewers are required to revise their own projections. The camouflage technique has a destabilizing effect: what viewers see and hear no longer belongs to pre-established categories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After this second part of the film, there is a second set of credits, marking the end of the movement back in time. The images once again proceed in chronological order, more slowly, and follow the progression of the voice, advancing without cover<\/em>. The voice becomes bold and casual. Its outspoken discourse is peppered with unsavoury remarks and clearly extremist Islamophobic statements that brutally plunge viewers into the contemporary society to which they belong. No longer protected by the barrier of History, they suddenly feel a certain malaise. Through the semantic and visual inconsistencies created by the artist, the viewers slowly become acutely aware that the scenes unfolding before them are not archival footage at all but contemporary images. Extracted from a historical re-enactment, these images are in fact an illusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The popular practice of re-enactment, consisting of playing out historical scenes, is the raw material for Sandy Amerio\u2019s film. Since 2010, as part of the \u201cF for Real\u201d research program at the \u00c9cole sup\u00e9rieure des beaux-arts de Nantes M\u00e9tropole, the artist has explored the complex ties between fiction and reality by examining the practice of re-enactment by its actors, known as re-enactors. She started her research in Japan, where she met Hiroki Nakazato, a well-known Japanese \u201cglobal re-enactor\u201d who travels the world to reconstitute acts of military prowess. This marked the start of a two-year photography and video project that allowed Amerio to discover a milieu that is usually off-limits to outsiders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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