Happy Birthday Jonas

Pip Chodorov's "Charlemagne 2: Piltzer" is a tour de force of hand-processed film which documents a Palestine piano concert. Chodorov uses flicker, negative/positive imagery, different printing techniques and colored filters to produce a film that is a true merging of sound and vision. - Frequent Small Meals

Charlemagne Palestine, holding a cheap black-and-white video camera, rides four of the rides at Coney Island, including the world-famous Cyclone roller coaster and, with his voice, keens his trademark drones while the rides progress, which, combined with the cacophony of sound that emanates from the rides, creates another version of the walls of sound for which he is known.

Strapping a video camera to himself as he drives a motorcycle around an island, Palestine harmonizes with the engine, maniacally repeating the phrase, "Gotta get outta here...gotta get outta here..." His chanting voice merges with the vibrations of the motor, forming an incessant soundtrack that echoes the jarring motion of the camera. Palestine creates a kind of composite instrument in motion as well as an "articulated personal drama". His stated desire for escape is contained by the boundaries of the island. Palestine was a trained cantor, and he often used his moving body and sustained vocalizing to generate a physical and aural intensity in his musical/video performances of this period.

Through many photographs, he tells the story and allows his story to be told by those photographed. This is where the brilliant documentary reversal takes place.