Review of ‘Hypernormalisation’


Blood streaks dry on the floor while nervous round children dance and an Irish woman describes “topsy-turvy” Syrian bomb-outs in a utopia where men cry and exiled hippies dress the entrails of cyberhell in corporate manifestos. Adam Curtis’ mammoth HyperNormalisation addresses the collapse of established reality in the wider world, examining substitute narratives, suicide bombings, liberal inefficacy, corporate power seizures, political cowardice, the falter of the revolution, and the death of dreams to decode why things are inexorably fucked. Curtis’ central target seems to be our collective inability to actually envision, let alone materialize, a better reality, as he presents a barrage of archival footage to construct an essay explaining why all efforts at resistance feel like Cumming dust into a sandstorm. Curtis’s film is remarkably cogent, remarkably prescient, and provides excellent insight into a reality where nothing seems tied down to anything at all. Featuring a gripping curatorial style, HyperNormalisation necessitates its density, and at the very least will leave one mumbling about how shit is fucked up.
-Jim Jung

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