Summary

Shot during the opening stages of the First Gulf War, Kerr's "Cruel Rhythm" revisits the American desert for a cinematic tone poem in the vein of 'The Last Days of Contrition' A canopy of sound bites of media coverage on the build-up toward the war is juxtaposed with the alienness of windmills in the desert, and a startling sequence of drifting faces of a crowd coming towards the camera in slow motion. A thought-provoking piece on media's construction of societal paranoia "Cruel Rhythm" is an attempt to make a public, shared feeling intimate, or conversely, to make a subjective feeling of floating anxiety and dread into a shared representation." Unsettlingly, its ambiance is as poignant today as ever.