This Monkey | Irish Artist's Film Index

This Monkey

Patrick Jolley


View this work

https://vimeo.com/176279426

Artist's biography

Patrick Jolley

Synopsis

'In Patrick Jolley's film 'This Monkey' a central concern is the question of disturbance. The film’s affect is hinged on what would be normally referred to as a disturbing image, that of rhesus monkeys snacking on the remains of what appear to be human corpses. In an era when the production of terror through the distribution of images of extreme violence and brutal murder is gradually becoming a reality that we are forced to live with, how is it that such an image is still capable of producing a sensation akin to that of horror. The horror in 'This Monkey' is not the consequence of anthropomorphised primates as in 'Planet of the Apes'. The horror runs much deeper since there is no direct attribution of human traits (most importantly the ability to speak) to these monkeys. The very notion of humanity, in other words the quality of being humane, is bound up with the distinction drawn between the human and the animal. The horror in 'This Monkey' is produced by a sharp attack on this distinction which has been an essential one in the formulation of human civilization and its various laws. By rendering humans food for monkeys, humanity itself is rendered food for thought. Yet this attack cannot be reduced to some naive denunciation of the human in the name of the animal. It is an attack that recognises both the historicity and futurity of this distinction yet picks on it without an apparent agenda, thus it hurts and disturbs.'

(Adapted from text by Bassam el Baroni, curator and critic on July 8th 2016)


Images

Details
Title

This Monkey

Year

2009

Form

Short

Key phrases

nature, rhesus monkey, human beings

Language

English (eng); no spoken content

Duration

00:07:00

Original formats

Physical: Film: 16mm

Aspect ratio

4:3

Colour

Mixture

Sound

Yes

Supported by Kildare County Council Arts Service, the Arts Council of Ireland and Visual Artists Ireland.
© 2016 - 2024 Irish Artist's Film Index. All rights reserved.