You can find the film by David Blandy on vimeo, or clicking this hyperlink
The film starts out with a man, falling from the sky, and landing on the ground unscathed. The setting is Los Santos, the city that is premised in the game Grand Theft Auto (GTA) 5. GTA is a hyper realistic video game where players can customize a character that acts on the same level of a demi-god. The character is limited by some human restrictions like health, hunger, speed, and strength, but has the potential of a deity. The character, controlled by the player, can become whoever they wish, with the goal to acclaim as much power as possible. The player can make the character own real estate, be a pimp, purchase luxury items, gamble millions at casinos, kill pedestrians and police officers at ease, and own the world of Los Santos with friends.
For more on the game, check out the trailer
The narrator starts the dialogue of the film by vaguely talking about a character called Fanon, someone who the character and the player are tied to in some regard. However, for now the role of Fanon can be attributed to the character. The player, referred to as the “settler”, used the character to create a world relished in the pinnacle of animalistic human nature: owning strip clubs and fast cars, seeking violence and money. The character, who no longer could handle being forced to do these things, broke free from the code of the software of the game of GTA. It was the development of the character’s consciousness that made him sentient, and it was the new character’s mission to create a world that is the antithesis of the world he left behind; one not governed by the explicative nature of the human mind, not ruled by money, sex, or power.
This seems all mighty and good, but the more we analyze the idea the character puts forth, the more we begin to observe the cyclical nature of creation. While walking by the train tracks, narrator says the most important quote of the film, which is: “What if Fanon’s message isn’t only of love?” The narrator previously described uprisings, protests, and revolutions as markers of a transition of a new world, but they have been suppressed by global consolidations of power. I think that these two messages are tied together, that revolutions happen because there is love for a new idea for a different world, like the one Fanon has. However, the love to create stimulates the hate to destroy, and that’s why the message isn’t only love. Also, it’s a paradox, because the ones that take over the world eventually become warped by the power and lose their sense of touch with the idea, and more revolutionaries are born to overthrow them too. Another idea brought up in the narration is the idea of being an immigrant, an outsider, or a racial minority. The narrator states “their skin changes their experience of the world, their dreams, their reality…”. The message is that those that are conducting the uprising are minorities, and that they are doing it because they’ve been pushed into a corner and have to fight back because it has gone too far “they have no air to breathe”. I think this emulates history in many ways, such as the revolutions by colonies and by racial groups across the globe. One group oppressing another seems to be an unfortunate theme of humanity. It does, however, feed back into the idea of needing to destroy an establishment with hate first before an establishment of love can be set forth.
The art film Finding Fanon 2 really evokes important ideas relative to the introspective discussion of humanity’s placement in the world. The concept of the film is very “meta”-style (the GTA character who embodies a human breaking free from human control to create a new world for his version of humanity that is based on the player’s humanity), and it needs to be that way for the point to truly get across. There is a lot to unravel about the film, so look out for the subsequent blog post on the film where I will diver deeper into specific scenes of the film that reveal who Fanon is!
And to see more videos from the film’s creator, check out this hyperlink
Popping the Popkorn Cernel 