Safe Condition: Document in the Past Perfect (1994)

Overview

Frames 20th-Century ideologies and dreams of liberation, using found footage. The film presents an account of the period between 1932-1985, juxtaposing two different films in a montage format. One, 18mm home footage of an unknown Danish family, taken before and after WW2. A deadpan camera registers happy holiday moments, the Berlin Olympics (1936), and the World Exhibition in Paris (1937). Secondly, and with the same lack of involvement, we see the liberation of Denmark in May 1945. The second film is a first generation erotic movie, shot in 1972, showing a student's party developing into carnality, reflecting the liberating promises of this newly legalized pornography. The entire montage is accompanied by and interview with Charles Manson, who projects his messianic views from his prison cell. Through its anti-dramatic slide from normality to perversion, the film implicitly challenges the 20th-Century welfare state's promise of freedom to its citizens.