Spacy (EOTWS)

End Of The Week Shorts 6.2 extract: Spacy (1981)

An exploration of 'mise en abyme', Spacy is an experimental film by Takashi Itoh that has us move through space (a gym), perpetually, moving through pictures within picture within pictures. As opposed to mise en scène (placing on the stage), mise en abyme (placed into the abyss) sees the formal blocking of a cinematic space reduced from a three dimensional 'sculpture in time' into a pseudo-four dimensional sculpture through time. 

With the subtext of self-exploration at the core of this 'narrative', realising the formal links to a sculpture through time, Itoh then commentates on cinema's capacity to transcend a human understanding of time and space and relay that back to an audience. This becomes a much more accessible idea when you realise that this experiment exposes the formal subtext of many films that move through space in a inhuman manner - of which you can find a plethora of examples. 

The final focus in Spacy then seems to be on a camera's perspective and how this relates to an audience being fed its perception. Interesting food for thought in my view.