The fifth video in William Kentridge's series, "Drawings for Projection", "Felix in Exile" focuses on the protagonist Felix Teitelbaum, "shown naked and vulnerable to apartheid's devastating acts" (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum). The animation process for this film was begun in September 1993 and finished February 1994. What is particularly interesting about Kentridge's process is that the "films reveal traces of their making" in that "Kentridge films a large charcoal drawing, which he partially erases and redraws, recording each sheet up to 500 times," (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum). The remnants and redrawing on a single piece of paper is said to "reflect the tensions between past and present," (Solomon R. Guggenheim). The film is accompanied by music by Phillip Miller and Motsumi Makhene (Tate). The drawings stay rather gray scale with strong, defined lines, with only hints of blue, brown, and red used symbolically by Kentridge.
In terms of context, "Felix in Exile" was made at a critical point of South African history, "just before the first general election in South Africa, and questioned the way in which the people who had died on the journey to this new dispensation would be remembered," (Tate). Kentridge has also been quoted as stating that this film was meant to warn, "that people are covering up or choosing to forget the realities of the past as part of their creation of a new South African identity," (Legacy Project).
The film introduces a new character, Nandi, an African woman who is shown "surveying the death and destruction after a brutal massacre, against a landscape that threatens to absorb the bodies and erase all traces of their existence," as, again, Kentridge comments, is his concern about the collective memory of South Africans (Legacy Project). Nandi's presence is difficult but "necessary" in order to retain that remembrance of the process it took to reach political change in South Africa (Legacy Project). The film "hides the bodies, leaving history and meaning concealed in an underground landscape," as Kentridge feels is the main goal of the new politics rising in South Africa (Bester: 32).
Felix appears in a sparsely decorated hotel room containing a bed, sink with mirror, and toilet. Shown semi-naked, and "brooding" over Nandi's survey drawings of the massacre and ruined landscape as they begin to accumulate and envelop Felix's room (Tate). Staring into the mirror as he shaves, Nandi appears to Felix and become connected to one another by a double-ended telescope that appears similar to the equipment used during land survey.
Water spills out of a basin on Nandi's side of the mirror and begins to flood the floor of Felix's room, "brought about by the process of painful remembering, symbolizing tears of grief and loss and the Biblical flood which promises new life" (Tate). Felix watches as a drawing of Nandi appears on his wall and displays how the bodies she surveyed become absorbed and transformed by the landscape. The water falling in Felix's room becomes tinged red, and he is left to watch Nandi, in pain, having been shot, die and become absorbed into the drawing. We are left to watch Felix enter into the African landscape, standing in the baron scene in a pool of water created from the remnants of Nandi.
In terms of context, "Felix in Exile" was made at a critical point of South African history, "just before the first general election in South Africa, and questioned the way in which the people who had died on the journey to this new dispensation would be remembered," (Tate). Kentridge has also been quoted as stating that this film was meant to warn, "that people are covering up or choosing to forget the realities of the past as part of their creation of a new South African identity," (Legacy Project).
The film introduces a new character, Nandi, an African woman who is shown "surveying the death and destruction after a brutal massacre, against a landscape that threatens to absorb the bodies and erase all traces of their existence," as, again, Kentridge comments, is his concern about the collective memory of South Africans (Legacy Project). Nandi's presence is difficult but "necessary" in order to retain that remembrance of the process it took to reach political change in South Africa (Legacy Project). The film "hides the bodies, leaving history and meaning concealed in an underground landscape," as Kentridge feels is the main goal of the new politics rising in South Africa (Bester: 32).
Felix appears in a sparsely decorated hotel room containing a bed, sink with mirror, and toilet. Shown semi-naked, and "brooding" over Nandi's survey drawings of the massacre and ruined landscape as they begin to accumulate and envelop Felix's room (Tate). Staring into the mirror as he shaves, Nandi appears to Felix and become connected to one another by a double-ended telescope that appears similar to the equipment used during land survey.
Water spills out of a basin on Nandi's side of the mirror and begins to flood the floor of Felix's room, "brought about by the process of painful remembering, symbolizing tears of grief and loss and the Biblical flood which promises new life" (Tate). Felix watches as a drawing of Nandi appears on his wall and displays how the bodies she surveyed become absorbed and transformed by the landscape. The water falling in Felix's room becomes tinged red, and he is left to watch Nandi, in pain, having been shot, die and become absorbed into the drawing. We are left to watch Felix enter into the African landscape, standing in the baron scene in a pool of water created from the remnants of Nandi.
Sources:
1. Bester, Rory, "Felix in Exile: The Work William Kentridge" NKA Journal of Contemporary African Art, 1998.8 (1998): 28-33
2. "Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Collection". Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. 31 12 2015. 19 4 2015 <www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artwork/9422>.
3. "Felix In Exile Text Summary." Tate Modern Museum. Tate, n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2015. <www.legacy-project.org/index.php?artID=450&page=art_detail>
4. "Visual Arts Library." The Legacy Project. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2015. <www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/kentridge-felix-in-exile-t07479/text-summary>
1. Bester, Rory, "Felix in Exile: The Work William Kentridge" NKA Journal of Contemporary African Art, 1998.8 (1998): 28-33
2. "Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Collection". Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. 31 12 2015. 19 4 2015 <www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artwork/9422>.
3. "Felix In Exile Text Summary." Tate Modern Museum. Tate, n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2015. <www.legacy-project.org/index.php?artID=450&page=art_detail>
4. "Visual Arts Library." The Legacy Project. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2015. <www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/kentridge-felix-in-exile-t07479/text-summary>