Hello Dankness
By Kit Macdonald
This outlaw collage film from the Australian sibling filmmaking duo Dan and Dominique Angeloro, aka Soda Jerk, explores the end of consensus reality: the idea that the dramatic events of the past decade or so (the election of Donald Trump, the Covid-19 pandemic, etc) have destroyed general agreement about what is real and what is not.
To that end, Tom Hanks' character in the 1989 film The Burbs is reimagined as a Bernie Sanders supporter and The Phantom of the Opera plays his pipe organ in front of a picture of Vladimir Putin with a VHS cassette on his shelf labelled “Pee Pee Tape” during 70 minutes of anarchic and frequently hilarious visual sampling, repurposing and remixing.
Soda Jerk's total disregard for copyright law means traditional distribution is impossible with their films, meaning they're difficult to see at the cinema, on the internet or on streaming services. Hello Dankness is no exception, and this screening represents a rare opportunity, and one to be grabbed with both hands.