This Monkey
Patrick Jolley
2009, 16mm transferred to HD, colour, sound, 7 mins
This Monkey, filmed in the Delhi area, confronts the spectator with a disturbing image of man’s close relative, the rhesus monkey. Jolley exploits our sense of biological kinship with these creatures and lulls us into easy acquiescence until the moment when we are confronted with the powerful revulsion evoked by their unexpected and unpredictable violence. This power is compounded by his refusal to offer any explanation which might place the event in a context. As in his early collaborative film, Seven Days Till Sunday, there is a prescience in these images which echoes those coming out of the Middle East in the last years.
Cinematographer – Denise Woods, Patrick Jolley
Editor – Bobby Good
Music and Sound Design – Nick Seymour, Brian Crosby