Bang!
Dir: Matthew Noel-Tod 2012
Script: Benedict Seymour
Commissioned by Chisenhale Gallery London.
Premiere: 30 August 2012.
“There is no universal history that leads from savagery to humanity,” said Adorno. But there is now a film with talking dogs that traces the development of the world spirit from Plato thru August 2011 riots to today. BANG! is a materialist history of the present that uses the language of internet memes, advice dogs, and infantilised avatars to tussle with the journey from an organic society to the surreal subsumption of capital; the unfinished story of communism for a world that's gone to the dogs.”
Hannah Black, Mute Magazine 2013:
“As Bang!’s breathless history reaches Descartes, a looped and claustrophobic shot of a playground tunnel and the sound of hammering and howls provide the background to a monologue delivered by a sad-faced pug (the best actor), who laments,
Monsieur René has nailed me to a board. He likes to extract our hearts alive to see how long they beat, to separate the cause from the effect […] I came here as a stray, thrown off my land.
The bravura of equating Cartesian vivisection and enclosure, newly proletarianised peasant and freshly dissected dog, is typical of the densely packed script written by Noel-Tod and Benedict Seymour. So, too, is the scene’s throwaway punchline, combining Descartes and pet food: ‘I think therefore IAMS.’ (Exclamation mark!).”