The Way Things Go
by David Weiss (II), Peter Fischli
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DVD details
Actor: -Director: David Weiss (II), Peter Fischli
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 30 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2002-03-19
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: FIRST RUN FEATURES
DVD Reviews of The Way Things Go
DVD Review: I shall never look at an old pair of shoes the same...
Summary: 5 Stars
The Way Things Go (1987) aka Der Lauf Der Dinge (perhaps loosely translated from German meaning The Laughing Dingo...okay, maybe not...the German I learned in high school didn't take very well) is an odd and wonderful film that I think would be well served shown in the various science and art classes one often has to take during ones stint in receiving a basic education.
In an old warehouse, artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss, who must have pillaged a local junkyard, create an extensively elaborate set up involving tires, chairs, rocket tea kettles, spray bottles, sugar cubes, old shoes, wooden ramps, small carts, garbage bags, balloons, fireworks, pools of liquid (sometimes flammable), gelatinous goo, along with other common, household items, with a result that I can only describe as a wondrous adventure in `planned chaos'. I used to do a similar thing with dominoes, spend hours lining hundreds of them up, only to watch them all fall within a matter of minutes, but this is so much more. Fischli and Weiss use all forms of matter, fire, water, and gravity to effect the forward motion (illustrated by transformations, propagation, reactions, and kinetics) of contraptions and such, resulting in constantly evolving concept of one thing leading to another, or, to put it another way, an artistic representation of cause and effect. I say it would be useful to show this in school science classes, as it's an implicit demonstration and display of the laws of thermodynamics, and presents the material in such a way that one may forget they're actually learning something, being mesmerized by the events occurring on the screen. It could also me a valuable tool in an art class, as it shows the simplistic beauty that can be drawn from very commonplace objects arranged in such a way to illustrate lifecycles through normally inanimate objects.
I enjoyed this short piece a lot (it runs 30 minutes), as I found myself constantly trying to guess what was going to happen next (synapses firing...mind stimulated...brain functioning...), and often trying to figure out what just happened. Most of the time the events were relatively easy to follow, but ingenuous in their simplicity. The camera work here is strictly for utilitarian purposes, following the seemingly constant reaction (the spark of life, if you will) and there is no music, but only the occasional sound effect from the noisier reactions. I do agree with some of the other reviewers that there may have been some cheating going on here (`hands on' manipulation), as sometimes the camera moves forward when a particular reaction seems not to have produced the intended result, but often, during the more precarious events, the artists appeared to have understood the possibility of failure, and worked contingencies within the set up. Even if they did supply some assistance in the form of tricky camera work, I'm willing to cut them a great deal of slack as it's the ideas presented within that I found fascinating, the intricate, linear chain of events that must have taken a great deal of time to plan, test, and produce.
As I said, the feature piece runs 30 minutes, and there are a couple of extra features like biographies of the artists and a little text regarding the actions in the film. I would have liked to see a little more, perhaps a scientific commentary track delineating the principals involved during the sequences within the film, but maybe it's better there's not one, as it may pique someone's curiosity enough to try and learn more about it for themselves. I am interested in some of those chemical reactions, specifically the ones that created a great deal of foam, as I often find myself in need of ideas for practical jokes (leave it to me to take something beautiful and twist it for my own, devious means). The price seems a bit hefty for the DVD, but the replay value is here, so I think I'll get my moneys worth.
Cookieman108
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