Christabel
2004 Whitney Biennel
Christabel is an abstract interpretation of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s unfinished Gothic poem about female possession. Adhering to the poem’s structure the film is presented in four parts – Two digital video half hour segments and then two short 16mm conclusions. The contemporary relevance of the poem’s symbols and themes is underlined using performance combined with heavy image and sound layering.
2001, 16mm and digital video, 74 min, color, sound mono
". . . embodies the radical spirit of today's most adventurous cinema"
- David Sterrit, Christian Science Monitor
"Posing a serious perceptual challenge to any viewer, Christabel conveys the exhilarating sense of an artist grappling with his media, bending it to new shapes and purposes."
- The Independent Film & Video Monthly
"Fotopoulos is applying his method to art rather than exploitation. The effects can be beautiful (the landscape bathed in a red gold haze) and even eerie (as when one woman's face is superimposed on the other's torso). Despite the potentially lurid material, the filmmaker remains withholding. He refuses to dramatize what Camille Paglia approvingly called the poem's 'blatant lesbian pornography,' or indeed, to even acknowledge it."
- Jim Hoberman, The Village Voice
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