Time Is Shaped Like a Labyrinth

May 18, 2024 6:53 AM

Mr. Samuel's Teatime Stories for Good Kids & Confused Adults is a short film in 4 parts by Yara Asmar, a musician, puppeteer, and filmmaker from Beirut. The creator describes it so: "In a wonky universe set within the fake walls of an old abandoned children’s TV show, Mr Samuel and his friends -peculiar, ugly puppets navigating the strange thing that is time- attempt to make sense of it all through stories, songs and arduous loops of nonsensical chores."

Asmar continues: Zizek’s book ‘The Parallax View’ begins with a description of the first use of modern art as a method of psychotechnic torture: French anarchist Laurencic’s ‘colored cells’. “The cells were as inspired by ideas of geometric abstraction and surrealism as they were by avant-garde art theories on the psychological properties of colors… the walls, which were curved and covered with mind-altering patterns of cubes, squares, straight lines, and spirals which utilized tricks of color, perspective, and scale to cause mental confusion and distress.”

Yes, it's a film in 4 parts, but the total running time is a hair under 30 minutes.

This is focusing on a particular project of Asmar's, but look around her website; there's a lot of other things there. Here's an interview on her music.

A short video analyzing the project by YouTuber Night Mind.

posted by GenjiandProust (3 comments total)

I watched the first video of the four. So very disturbing and creative. But then I read the interview on her music, and the pieces really started to fall into place. She talks about needing to disconnect, about moving from home to home - about her ailing grandfather - and I can see some of her influences reflected in her work.
It gave me a lot to think about. How when we find deep passions to follow and develop, we are often disconnecting from the world to do so - and it can be a much needed escape.
The way she describes just picking up an accordion and working through the design and how to play it - I've found the instruments I've connected with most deeply are the ones I explore initially on my own. I highly recommend that approach.
Thank you for posting this, even if now I do feel a bit like I'm on shifting ground.
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 7:14 AM on May 18 [3 favorites]

Her aesthetic is very heavily “of the Internet”, but it feels like it’s the Internet of twenty years ago. This reminded me of nothing so much as Salad Fingers.

I really need to watch and listen to more of her work.
posted by Kattullus at 12:46 PM on May 18 [1 favorite]

I really liked this.
One thing that it reminded me of, early, was some encounters I'd had when I worked in a state mental hospital. There's an internal logic, unusual use of words, preoccupation with time, isolation. Then the solitude and inability to leave in chronically institutionalized persons.
The aesthetic was a 1970s PBS meets Jodorowski to me, which is strange, since I doubt Yara Asmar grew up on the same weird 1970s-80s educational programming I did.
posted by cobaltnine at 5:27 PM on May 18 [3 favorites]