'To register, I want to register places and things before it gets destroyed by modernity and progression. Before it is lost forever.'-- Henri Plaat
'The versatile Dutch artist, photographer and film maker Henri Plaat traveled a lot. He visited Greece, the Middle-East, India and Latin America, where remains of ‘places of history’, fascinated him. He filmed such locations and like in his drawings and paintings fantasy and reality supplemented each other in 8mm and 16mm footage. Plaat made some forty different films full of fragments of reality, sometimes absurd, surreal or melancholic.'-- Re:Voir
'Filmmaker and artist Henri Plaat (Amsterdam 1936) made about forty short films. Plaat's films could be described as a series of 'travel documentaries without a narrative line' that he made alongside surrealistically tinted films. In these travelogues, the boundaries between film and visual art have disappeared. In his films, Plaat emphasises the autonomy of the visual material in a poetic way. This can be seen in Spurs of Tango for which Plaat was given a Golden Calf in 1981, Moroccan Light (1995), and Luz Y Sombra (1989). The mood in Plaat's oeuvre, which he describes as 'the beauty of decay' is shaped in the travelogues by the often fixed camera standpoint, as a result of which landscapes, people, animals or objects pass the eye in a stream of sometimes hallucinogenic images. Thus, the sequence of images, the precision of the framing and the frequent and subtle use of music play a major role.'-- Brooklyn Film Festival
'Henri Platt is a visual artist who has been working with film since 1968, while continuing to paint, draw and make collages. In his films, Plaat combines a mild absurdum with documentary images he records on his travels through Europe, Asia, America and North Africa. These two styles are connected in his works through association. Fragments of reality – apparently unimportant villages on far mountain slopes, a turning fan in beautiful black and white, a man with an enormous lollypop... all the images are equally curious. The mystery of beauty is celebrated with exquisite compositions in the beautiful colours of the kodachrome 16mm reversal film.'-- Past Incubate
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Film stills
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A little further
Henri Plaat Website
Henri Plaat @ IMDb
DVD: 'Seven Films by Henri Plaat'
'Roger Katwijk; Henri Plaat – Mede te nemen bij brand!'
Henri Plaat @ mubi
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Portrait: Henri Platt
'A pinhole movie presented by Jérôme Schlomoff. This film proposes a cinematographic portrait of the Dutch artist Henri Plaat, by filming the processing of the silver print letting appear its photographic portrait. At the same time as the image is created in the darkroom, the hands of Henri Plaat tear a board of paperboard. It creates in its turn, randomly of this uncontrolled “work of destruction” the ghostly images with the torn pieces. Characters, animals, landscapes, architectures, boats, as many images belonging to the artistic Universe of Henri Plaat, who practices painting, cutting paper & cinema.'-- JS
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Kettel meets Henri Plaat
'Electronic music producer KETTEL creates a score for Henri Plaat's films.'-- Cinesonic
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Collages
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4 of Henri Platt's 35 films
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Other Thoughts 4 (2008)
'Other Thoughts 4 is een serie portretten met als bindend element verstilde beelden. Een surrealistische wereld die niet vreemd is, maar eerder bestaat uit flarden van dromen en soms van zorgen. De montage wordt bepaald door beeld en sfeer. Een melancholische film die is samengesteld uit materiaal dat Plaat in de loop van zijn verschillende reizen verzamelde.'-- iffr.com
the entire film
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2nd War Hats (1986-87)
'2nd War Hats shows a series of heads with absurd sumptuous covering peeping out of manhole covers. A number of questions emerge: prairie dogs sniffing, deciding whether or nor to come out of their burrows? Men dressed up as women? Unsafe to come out from the man-hole?'-- Senses of Cinema
Excerpt
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Fragments of Decay (1983)
'Architectural shots of abandoned buildings, walls, the kind that appear in the nether landscapes of Cocteau’s Orpheus (1949), but emptied, worn, eroded, silent, pensive and wise.'-- Cine Sonic
the entire film
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I am an old smoking, moving Indian Movie Star (1968)
'A veiled Indian lady talks to the camera (silent). Her story is told in images.'-- re-voir.com
the entire film
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p.s. Hey. It's a Mini-Day because there's not much out there about Henri Plaat. Basically, I saw someone interesting express admiration for his films, and I had never heard of him, so I did an investigation and made a post at the same time. ** David Ehrenstein, I obviously agree with you about them. I only watched maybe an episode and a half of 'Queer as Folk', and I didn't take to it at all. I'm mostly curious about his new thing because the multiple, intertwined, concurrent shows and the supposed experimental-lite structure of the 'Cucumber' portion intrigues me a bit. ** Tosh Berman, Thanks, Tosh. I think it's the bread. The bread tastes like it was made by a 3D printer. Have you heard the Sparks/Ferdinand album yet? Obviously, I'm very curious about that. They're playing here, but unfortunately in this dreadfully big and otherwise uninteresting rock festival. ** Thomas Moronic, Yep. 'DEitD' is one of Gary's best novels, I think. ** _Black_Acrylic, Oh, cool. That Tillman is my favorite of her novels, I think, although they're all excellent. Sweet about the YnY reunion. The hole it left has not been filled. I read that about Blatt's resignation. I know squat about FIFA, like I said, but it sure seems like a good step. Fingers crossed. ** Cal Graves, Howdy, Cal. Well, Zac and I are meeting with the guy whom we hope will do the final compositing and special effects work on our film tonight, and, if he's good and game, the film should be finished in a week maybe. The theater piece is in its final refining and polishing phase. Gisele is now in Germany working non-stop to get it right, and I'll be going there in 9 days to do my part in making that happen. New stuff? Yeah, a lot. The script for Zac's and my next film is getting close to being finished. As soon as it is, he and I have to write the pilot for the puppet TV show that Gisele is hoping to direct/ produce for French television. I'm easing back into my long-dormant novel. And I'm putting together a 'book' of my short gif works that Kiddiepunk will likely put out fairly soon. And other stuff. Busy time. I guess I'm not supposed to be happy that my books are in Half Price books, but I am, actually. Affordability is big. Yay about the new poems and the progress and general productivity and busyness. It's nice, right? High five. I-wish-some-company-would-hire-me-to-design-an-ashtray-for-them-ly, Dennis. ** Steevee, Hi. The Myles is terrif. I'm just barely in touch with Akashic, and not in a while. They get in touch once in a while to press me to start up the flow of LHotB books again, but I'm not ready. Their 'product' has always been all over the place. From wonderful to niche-marketed stuff to earn the press some dough. ** Keaton, Butts' grip is a floaty thing when everyone is lucky. Gum is the dentures of the gods. Okay, I'm going to google dolphin bites. Life being good is the epitome of good. Which Hitchcock? Writers who try to look badass in their photos mostly look like dopes, I think. I would go for neutrality. ** Hunter, Hi, Hunter. So you do write. That's cool. Yeah, I mean, I didn't publish anything I wrote for a long, long time. It took me ages to get the ideas in my mind and the ideas in my fingers properly lined up. I wouldn't worry, just keep trying to illustrate pages, and it'll happen. Sooner than you think, even. NYC is intense. It's a good place to live at some point, for a while at least. I lived there twice, both for about two years, which is when it became too much for me, and I left. Chicago has seemed really nice when I've visited it. Oh, me? I do really love Paris a lot. And LA, my hometown. I think the most exciting city I've been to is Tokyo. It's huge and seems like it has millions of exciting things to find and to do, and it's alienating in a very interesting way because people there are so relentlessly kind and polite. Have an awesome day, man. It's great talking to you too. ** Misanthrope, I hit your funny bone, cool. Granted, in Paris there's not a lot of choice on the edible Mexican food front, although increasingly more, but I like the Chipotle food. If they had, say, a Baja Fresh or a Poquito Mas here, I'd be there instead. But it's good, man, or at least not bad at all. No, I missed that 'South Park'. I'll find it. Somehow. Yum dinner you had there. I didn't like Moscow at all. I've been there three times. I found it oppressive and depressing. But I too know people who really like it, and I can not for the life of me figure out how that could be. But apparently it's possible. You got me as per why. ** Okay. I did my post intro, such as it was, up above, and I'll see you tomorrow.