’Wild Boy’ is the story of the educational process undergone by young Amir in Ben-Ner’s custody. The father puts the boy into a routine of education and civilization, from bathing him, cutting his hair and dressing him, to teaching him how to eat, speak, read and write. All this is done in what has already become Ben-Ner’s personal style – reverting to his old building tricks (building a machine to measure the boy’s progress), alternative use of home appliances (the refrigerator is transformed into a book), and using a variety of means and references from the history of art and cinema.
In teaching Amir how to write, Ben-Ner quotes Dennis Oppenheim’s ’Stage Transfer Drawing’ (1971). In order to illustrate the boy’s “primitive” condition, he makes a flip-book out of the famous Lumière sequence of the train entering the station, thus addressing early cinema. The process of “education” is in fact rendered by the camera work. While the boy is in his wild stage, the camera follows him as in the “wildlife” genre of [Ben Ner’s] ’Elia’. From the moment he is captured, the camera goes still, and the whole process of education is about “keeping the boy in the frame.” (Sergio Edelsztein)
Sound: Mariano Weinstein
With: Elia, Amir and Guy Ben-Ner
This film was produced with the assistance of the Fund for Video Art and Experimental Cinema, The Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv; with the support of the Israeli Film Council.
The CDA's archives are operating with the support of the Ostrovsky Family Fund and Artis
