New York 1% (If You See Something Say Something)

This is a sort of a documentary 24-minute essay on New York, which was filmed in June 2017, during my two-week stay in this city. Various manifestations of a modern society and fear used as a governing tool – constant appeals to civic consciousness, writings on every corner with contents that control, forbid, restrict or suggest; reminder on terrorism danger and on events of September 11th 2001 etc. – influenced the choice of scenes. As already noticed by sociologists several decades ago, mass societies are increasingly governed by manipulative procedures so that the citizens “voluntarily” obey, but simultaneously and without restraints physical violence is effectively applied, as well.
Therefore the tourist camera almost instantly becomes socially critical and records all those opposites and stratifications – political, social and racial – which result from industrialization and urbanization, and are especially evident in the streets of multi-million cities like New York.
In highly functional cities, like America ones, there is very little room for poetry (it is being put in the part of the film on “the city that flows” – the East River, the river of people on avenues, the river of cars...), while much more room is occupied by various forms of preachery.
The impression of a control society has been additionally boosted by the rifled contents of my suitcase upon my return to Zagreb. All scenes on the streets of New York were shot spontaneously, without retries, while the contents of the film are “rifled” by editing interventions in the picture and the sound as well as by fragmentarily original music, in order to underscore the basic idea of the film.