Close Up Peter Gidal, 1983

Peter Gidals cinema is antinarrative, against representation, and fiercely materialist. In CloseUp, his political, ultraleftist practice is augmented by the disembodied voices of two Nicaraguan revolutionaries heard in the soundtrack. These voices punctuate a film whose representation of a room, an inhabited space, is one in which the viewer must consciously search for recognition, for meaningmaking. The imagecontent is muted and abstract, but fascinating, with moments of inadvertent beauty.