Today, I have been invigilating at Picture This, in Bristol. We have just had a talk by Maryam Jafri on her piece ‘Avalon’.
The film ‘Avalon’ features an entrepeuner known as F.R in an Asian country, who was given $700 USD by his father in order to ‘make something of himself’. With this F.R invested in a multi million dollar clandestine company that secretly exports fetish wear.
The women who work in this factory, not only do not know what they are actually making these products for, but they think they are body bags for US military in Iraq and props for circus animals.
The choice of factory and products relied upon the themes of gender, sexuality, the unconscious, desire and mainly the workers -abused by the service providers.
The range of different characters and relationships explains and gives a difficult and thorough view of the moral implications involved in this factory setting. At first glance the entrepeneur and the consumer are judged, however you soon realise that the workers may be better off not knowing..? These complex relationships and the civil liberties concerning their rights and visibility is one of the main key elements to this part documentary, part staged performance.
Is it best that these women, are kept in the dark – not living in shame of what they are making?
This somewhat journalistic approach to film making, engulfed with huge amounts of field work and research that has been carried out, seems highly appropriate in order to produce the staged shots.
Real or unreal, the film allows the subconscious to reveal many political feelings and opens the mind to reflection of these.
