Andreas Schlaegel
www.nifca.org, www.networknorth.net
It is always difficult to live up to
expectations, even more so if your latest video has just been a major hit at
the Venice Biennale. And Tykkä’s Lasso certainly was an instant success,
with a deceptively simple narrative, contrasted by an over-the-top
soundtrack, an erotically charged act of voyeurism and a spectacular lasso
twirling performance. The combination is ironic but truly romantic, highly
seductive and yet extremely economical.
Like Lasso, her new work Thriller was shot on 35mm, transferred to video,
and has undergone professional post production, most notably colour-grading,
thereby achieving the quality of expensive TV commercials. Salla Tykkä
obviously studied the language of film intensively, and makes even better
use of it in Thriller, with its skilful blend of suspense and emotion, and
efficient framing and editing.
A precisely crafted and poetic scenario unfolds: a woman in black gathers
twigs in a forest for a bonfire she is preparing in front of a large, dark,
wooden family house. A man leads a sheep up to the house, and enters,
leaving the animal outside. In a top-floor bedroom a young girl in her
mid-teens lies on the bed, running her hands over her body. Suddenly, her
eyes widen with awareness. She stares at the door, awaiting the man, her
father. The music builds up, a theme from the iconic John Carpenter slasher
movie Halloween. But the father hesitates, leaves, leads the sheep to his
cottage, climbs into a boat and rows away. The girl in her room jumps up,
looks out of the window, runs down the stairs and through the forest, where
her mother is still piling up branches. Reaching a small log cabin, she
enters only to encounter her own reflection in a mirror. Her glance travels
to the window, and a sheep behind it, and on to a rifle leaning against a
wall. She takes it, aims and shoots through the window. The sheep lies on
the forest floor, his head shattered. The mother lights the bonfire in front
of the house.
So, it’s lamb for supper? American horror films have familiarised us with
the cliché: the teenage girl personifies innocence, virginity in danger, and
as such must be protected from evil. At the same time, as her only purpose
is to lose her virginity, she remains the passive object of male projection
– and ultimately the aggression – we fear in Tykkä’s film when the father
approaches his daughter’s room.
The powerful father, the shepherd, God, suddenly abandons his sheep, his
daughter, his power, and when the daughter discovers that the father has
gone, she is able to see herself from his point of view: an innocent,
passive animal. Using the instrument of his power, the rifle, she destroys
his image of her.
Power and control are recurring themes in Tykkä’s work, and they take on an
original form in her new video. Nonetheless, the use of symbolism feels
heavy-handed in Thriller, even if only in comparison to the lightness and
understatement of Lasso. But then both works form part of a trilogy. When
completed, Thriller, set in the past, will be the first part; Lasso,
situated in the present, the second. The third, ‘future’ part is in the
pipeline, and if the hype doesn’t go through the roof, I am curious to see
it.
Salla Tykkä’s Thriller premiered at Nifca, Soumenlinna, Helsinki on 14
February 2002 and was shown at the Temple Bar, Dublin, 5 – 30 March 2002, as
part of Network North.
Salla Tykkä Thriller, 2001, 35mm/video, 7 mins 30 secs. Courtesy: Nifca,
Helsinki