by ELMORE TERADONOVICH, Alternate Reality News Service Film and Television Writer
Tedium is an underappreciated quality of the cinematic experience. These days, if there isn't an explosion every three seconds, audience members roll their eyes and exclaim, "Lame!" I've never understood how hobbling people became synonymous with disapproval of the culturally passe - perhaps, it's a reference to a kind of unpopular fabric, but it isn't usually pronounced in a Canadian way, so I'm dubyaous. Budyious. Dubdub - skeptical. I'm skeptical.
However, tedium is a much more realistic method of portraying the lives of ordinary people, people who have never heard the sound, "Pew! Pew! Pew!" or found themselves in the garbage compactor of a space ship with an unknown alien creature. (If you are somebody who has heard the sound, "Pew! Pew! Pew!" or found yourself in the garbage compactor of a space ship with an unknown alien creature, well, this review is probably not for you.)
The 250 is a conceptual video by well known interventionist provocateur Fluffy Ribabunnista. Ribabunnista found 253 videos of police brutality against peaceful protesters that onlookers had shot with their phones and posted to YahooTube. He...she...or it then edited the videos together without any transitions or editorial comment. The result is an epic comment on the banality of banality, a 512 minute ode to mind-numbing repetition. It's Italian neo-realism with flash grenades! It's Russian brutalism with witty homemade signs and strident banners!
I have never met Ribabunnista, but I imagine he...she...or it wears a beret, has a goatee and sips suspicious tea out of a homemade mug with a daisy pattern on it. Or, Guernica. Either that, or he...she...it is a collective of internet video artists who got bored one day, overcaffeinated and watched a little too much evening news.
But, that's mere biography.
The first time you see a police baton come down on the body of an anti-police violence protester, you are sickened. Repulsed. Caught in an ironic feedback loop that threatens your very understanding of the nature of reality. The second time you see a police baton come down on the body of an anti-violence protester, the - you will pardon the expression - impact of the video on your comfortable bourgeois assumptions about how the world works is slightly less impactful.
By the twelfth time you see a police baton come down on the body of a protester, your attention wanders to the mise en scene (translation: "mist in the scene," which can be taken literally when the police have used teargas on the protesters). Sometimes, it's day. Sometimes, it's night. Sometimes, the officer with the baton is part of a long line of police, sometimes part of a small group of officers that have broken off from the main group (like a malign breakout session at a self-help seminar). Your mind will latch onto any detail that stands out in order to keep from drifting into a semi-comatose state.
By the twenty-seventh time you see a police baton come down on the body of a protester, you are likely to have achieved numbness (the Vesampuccerian Dental Association is currently considering using the video as an anesthetic in case the country runs out of Lidocaine). At this point, serious differences in events will be shrugged off by the viewer. Was that...a policeman shoving an elderly protester to the ground? Umm...oh, well. That...that couldn't have been a police cruiser driving into a group of protesters...could it. That's terrible! That's deliberate...deliberate...oh, police baton coming down, again. What was I just thinking?
WARNING: succumbing to a video-induced tedium stupor can leave the viewer in a highly suggestive state. Make sure to only watch The 250 alone or with somebody you would trust with your wallet.
The 250 is a mallet to the head of the body politic. When the numbness subsides, you will either be outraged by state violence against innocent protesters and hunger for justice, or realize that eight and a half hours have passed and hunger for a hoagie. Either way, it will have been an experience.
If you "enjoy" The 250 in any traditional sense of the word (including the occluded precipitant), get help!