Disillusioned Love 2

In the video’s introductory sequence, the camera moves along the seam of a bedspread toward the protagonist, a young man writing diary-like notes on a paper pad. At first, the film’s plot seems simple enough: a young woman poisons her husband so she can start a new life with her lover. But are things really as they seem? Is the woman just thinking about the possibility of this? Could it be that her lover even distrust her? Or does the woman herself become a victim in this tangled story? The image and sound track are decoupled in the loop. Thus, with each rotation, new possibilities of interpretation arise even though the images and text are the same. At the story’s core is the complex relationship between the couple, whose distrust of each other is continually nourished by seemingly mundane occurrences. In Disillusioned Love 2, Keren Cytter explores feelings of love, desire, mistrust, jealousy, suspicion, alienation and revenge. The action takes place in a small apartment as a chamber play.

The artist, who was born in Tel Aviv in 1977 and is also a playwright and novelist, tells her story on several levels, always giving it a new twist. Cinematically, however, Cytter works with simple resources. The setting is her own apartment, and the actors are her friends. The camera work recalls a spontaneously recorded amateur video. All the more surprising is the ambiguous effect of the scenes, dialogues and images. Cytter succeeds in breaking traditional interpretation formats and undermining the expectation of the viewers, who have been trained by media consumption. In the end, everything remains open.