One would certainly need to start writing a daily journal and record precious moments of Jonas Mekas's films in order to properly reflect on the work of this special figure of avant-garde and independent cinema. Consequently, this mini note could only mark the first page of my own diary. However, one particular scene engraved in memory while seeing the retrospective of his work in the Serpentine gallery this afternoon. One of the shots of Outtakes from the Life of a Happy Man (2012) playing in Serpentine's central room shows a world population meter installed outside New York's skyscraper. The counter measures newborns with the speed of a light. On the contrary, people standing underneeth stand perfectly still and watch the increasing number of world's population with a great amusement. To what extent can they trust the series of numbers on this rather absurd mechanism though? How would one count the frequency of human births? Could we think of this peculiar clock as a perfect reflection of the narration in Mekas's films? The narration that is opened up by inadequacy and fragmentation?
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Image: video still, Orchard Street (2010), Jonas Mekas
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