Man & Woman & Animal

Instead of the holy trinity: father, son, holy spirit, instead of the profane trinity: mother, family, state, instead of the social trinity: father, mother, children the film treats the real trilogy in 3 sections. What unites man and woman (not uniquely for sure, but what is being concealed) is the history of nature. (V.E.)

The earlier films of Valie Export, one feels, were motivated by the author´s desire and needs to investigate her own subjectivity, with the audience as a necessary part of the transference and polemic. Man & Woman & Animal shows a woman finding pleasure in herself, the whole film a kind of assertion and affirmation of female sexuality and its independence from male values and pleasures. Thinking about my "quite erotic" tag of that film I realize that as a viewer I am experiencing a sexuality like that of childhood - one motivated by curiosity, a prosaic pleasure in looking, but free from fantasy. It is quite unlike the experience of ordinary pornography which is invested with the erotic almost exclusively through its symbolization of power.
(Joanna Kiernan)

More Texts

Stefan Grissemann zu Mann & Frau &Animal von Valie Export

Eine Hand am Chrom, an den Hähnen einer Badewanne: Kino für Klitoris und gezielten Wasserstrahl, für rot tropfendes Blut und schwarzweiße Close-Up-Vagina, für 16mm-Film und Standphotographie. Ein berühmtes Beispiel für Exports extremistische Gegen-Pornographie: explizit, aber nicht (vor)getäuscht, genitalfixiert, aber nicht ausbeuterisch. Es geht Export hier wie auch anderswo darum, vor allem zwei Dinge freizusetzen: ihre Polemik gegen die rückstandsfreie bürgerliche Sexualität - und, grundsätzlicher, das Fremde in der systemerhaltenden schockarmen Unterhaltungs-Kultur.
Orig. Title
Mann & Frau & Animal
Year
1970 - 1973
Country
Austria
Duration
8 min
Director
VALIE EXPORT
Category
Avantgarde/Arts
Orig. Language
No Dialogue
Credits
Director
VALIE EXPORT
Concept & Realization
VALIE EXPORT
Cinematography
Didi, Peter Weibel
Sound
Hermann Hendrich
Production
VALIE EXPORT
Available Formats
16 mm (Original Format)
Aspect Ratio
1:1,37
Sound Format
mono
Frame Rate
24 fps
DCP 2K flat (Distribution Copy)
Aspect Ratio
1:1,85
Sound Format
mono
Frame Rate
24 fps
Digital File (prores, h264) (Distribution Copy)