Release (1996)

RELEASE stages once again the trivial literary film "topos" of the white woman in front of monster, and does it with relish and with violence (King Kong 1932). But Girardet proceeds in a highly artificial manner. Artificiality, anonymity and fragmentation are elaborated as the characteristics of the subject in a highly dramatic exercise. The image of the subject is defined using precise manipulation as a Dante-like ritual of agonies. His mode of working with its rapid invasion, and editing, which has only become possible in the nineties, means the destruction of the subject. Girardet's formal capacity and artistic moral is documented by the fact that he creates a temporal structure which pushes the presentation of hysteria to its limits (or even beyond them). He starts with the image of the idol and ends by destroying it. (Barbara Alms)