Most widely known for directing The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye, the nonfiction chronicle of Throbbing Gristle founder Genesis P-Orridge’s body mod-heavy Pandrogyny project, the bulk of Marie Losier’s filmography tends to inhabit more esoteric formal territories. For almost two decades now, Losier has specialized in a particular type of experimental narrative short fiction, whimsical and reverent of the cinematic, her work brings to mind that of the Kuchar Brothers and Guy Maddin, with much of her work spent dreaming up avant-garde portraiture of these very same artists (Tony Conrad and Alan Vega have also received this treatment), placing them in front of the camera in surrealist scenarios emblematic of their spirit. Her latest short, Taxidermize Me, does the same, but for the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Paris’s hunting and nature museum, who commissioned Losier to film this in their space while it was closed off to the public earlier in the pandemic. The museum’s collection of taxidermied wildlife provides Losier with a colorful and expressive “cast” to work with, commemorated in zippy 16mm cinematography, contrasted with a collection of human actors in heavy makeup and ghillie suits. A loose narrative emerges as a hunter pursues the museum-bound humans, his gunshots rendering them into taxidermied creatures. The metaphor here isn’t so hard to decipher, but Losier’s nimble pacing (10-minute runtime) and general sense of playfulness keep Taxidermize Me away from anything patronizing, achieving instead a more unique tone resting somewhere between manic and meditative.
Published as part of FIDMarseille 2021 — Dispatch 2.
