CPH:DOX 2021: A Man And A Camera

Guido Hendrikx’s work is similar in spirit to master provocateur Kazuo Hara’s cinema of confrontation – a style that places the director’s role as “accomplice and collaborator” front and center. Or perhaps it’s a highbrow version of the might-just-get-punched-in-the-face antics of the Jackass franchise. Either way, with his latest A Man and a Camera, a brisk 64-minute film world-premiering in the Dox:Award competition at this year’s CPH:DOX, the Dutchman behind the equally spontaneous and unnerving Stranger in Paradise (CPH:DOX 2017) takes the cinéma vérité conceit to its logical absurdist extreme. A man (who we never see, as we witness all from his POV) roams a small village with a video camera, recording everything from plants and animals to people – often ones whose doorbells he’s randomly rung. But rather than engage with the dwellers who answer in confusion the director just keeps on shooting while remaining unbudgingly mute – acting as the very embodiment of the “neutral” objective lens (and of course simultaneously upending the pretense of fly on the wall passivity). So what could possibly go wrong?

To find out read my review at Hammer to Nail.