25:00

Sound from the Hallways
Director Lasse Lau. Kran Film & Seen Films
Denmark/Egypt, 25 min, No dialogue, 2012

With his latest film Lasse Lau revisits history in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo to challenge concepts of historicism and museology, from a time of the early 20th century when history was still seen as universal, and man believed in its abundant truth, to a time where several histories and narratives challenge each other for the semblance of reality.

“The true picture of the past flits by. The past can be seized only as an image which flashes up at the instant when it can be recognized and is never seen again.” (Walter Benjamin “On the concept of history”)

This cinematographic work takes us through a series of the museum’s antique collections, as objects of men, women, faros, animals, and armies slowly glide pass the gaze of the viewer something intrusive is on the verge of happening.

The film documents the atmosphere of one of the most classic and visually dense collections on display in the world before its buildings and modus operandi becomes history.

The sound was produced by Maurice Louca