Knout – a Film by Deco Dawson

I found the work of filmmaker Deco Dawson via Mike Everleth at Bad Lit: The Journal of Underground Film. This is one of the films Dawson has on his Vimeo page and it’s a brutal but gorgeous piece that suggests the violence one can commit against one’s self.

The film is all gnarled and fuzzy and stained. It looks like something shot in the twenties and dug up in a basement somewhere. Right around the 8:15 mark there’s a sequence of images that are just simply stunning. The actress, Jenovia Tretiak, is frenzied and beautifully insane. The original score by Patric Caird is perfect and hair-raising.