Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind

Occassionally I get excited about the idea of experimental films. Then I go see one and remember what "experimental" usually signifies. Yeesh.


Profit Motive and the Whispering Wind is an attempt to tell the history of American activism using only plaques, memorials and gravestones. In itself, the idea of making a historical film in this way could probably work. The problem with Profit Motive Etc is not the experimental nature of its approach but rather the lack of coherent story underpinning it. It goes from monuments to Quaker pioneers and Native American chiefs to plaques commemorating 19th Century trade unionists, culminating eventually in a modern day rally opposing war in the Middle East. The motif of wind blowing in leaves is used repetitively throughout to symbolise an ongoing movement across time but this argument, which would be a long bow however you tried to draw it, is in no way backed up by the material shown. It's simply a lot of memorials dedicated to unrelated causes, or to unrecognised names without any context about what cause their owner stood for, if any.


It's a shame because I genuinely would have liked to see a historical film that told its story only using source materials, like memorials. Even without using voice-over or interviews, though, this film didn't manage this, providing comment at several points via titles. Not explanatory titles, which told you whose grave you were looking at, but annoying things like pasting the word "MASSACRED" over "DEFEATED" on a plaque describing a battle from the Indian wars. This kind of blatant editorialising defeated, or massacred if you will, the purpose of not doing a voice-over.


So another experiment falls on its face. At least it was a step up from the two shorts that preceded it, the unsubtly named Capitalism: Slavery and Capitalism: Child Labour, which together posed the question - how long can you add strobe effects and white noise to old photographs before making your audience want to tear their own eyes out? The answer is just over 17 minutes because I was literally seconds away when they finally, mercifully, ceased.