Person

Once again the man appears, walking along the rugged, inconsistent terrain. He stares at something, then looks away, curses and shakes his head, lost in the cages of the mind with no way out. We then see him lying on the ground.

He gets up and begins throwing objects at no particular target. He beats an off-screen object with a stick, and finishes with resounding, bitter, hysterical laughter. Suddenly his gaze turns livelier, sharper. Something has dawned on him. Now we return to the observation deck, where a group of tourists is observing through the steel viewer. Then the children do the same, only their attention is not focused on any point in particular across the vast plain before them.

The soundtrack shifts into gear with intermittent electronic clicks that help to create spellbinding suspense. We now see the man sitting on a stool he’s built with logs gathered nearby. The next scene unveils the mystery: He is observing from a distance a sign with the word “Person” written in cubic characters, which he himself made in order to attract the attention of people looking through the viewer on the observation deck.

This is the fourth Masbedo video in the Iceland series, and the emphasis is on the theme of people’s uniqueness and the consequent difficulty in getting respect and consideration from others. Here a critique is especially pointed at today’s hectic, consumerist, globalized society, which distracts our attention from man’s authentic essence, noiselessly penning us within our own problematic condition and debasing human dignity

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