{"id":871,"date":"2019-06-13T18:31:02","date_gmt":"2019-06-14T02:31:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bracketthis.com\/blog\/?p=871"},"modified":"2019-06-13T18:31:02","modified_gmt":"2019-06-14T02:31:02","slug":"minutes-to-midnight-trent-parke-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bracketthis.com\/blog\/2019\/06\/13\/minutes-to-midnight-trent-parke-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Minutes to Midnight Trent Parke Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

For this review of Minutes to Midnight<\/i> by Trent Parke (2013), I’ll be using the index created here<\/a>. In a previous blog post I talked about the stylistic and technical aspects of the work<\/a>, where the filmic qualities and the chance a film process introduces are paramount. This review is just my interpretation of the book, and no doubt won’t be the last, but just one voice in a really, really long conversation.<\/p>\n

The work starts off with a description of a UFO sighting. I quote it here at length.<\/p>\n

—- start of excerpt —-
\nWitnesses reported watching a ball of light move across the sky
\nFor up to five minutes at about 5.50 am Saturday.
\n“It was a perfect spiral of light,” one Redcliffe witness told The Sunday Mail<\/i>
\n“I realized soon it was not the moon but that it was shooting like a comet from the southern sky and off into the northwest.”
\nAnother Brisbane resident said: “There was absolutely no sound in a perfectly clear, darkened sky before dawn.”<\/p>\n

The weather bureau said there were no weather conditions which would explain the light.
\nA defense spokeswoman also said she had no explanation.<\/p>\n

The sunday Mail. June 5th 2010. Queensland, Australia<\/i>
\n—- end of excerpt —-<\/p>\n

As I ponder this and turn to the first picture (1) which is of moths to light, I stare it at for a bit. The photo now seems to resemble an alien planet. Photos 2 & 3 just seem like a capture of amusements, but then in photo 4 we get a bit of long exposure. I feel like the aliens have arrived.<\/p>\n

Photos 5 through 14 are scenes of life in the Outback, or the rougher parts of Australia. Photos 15 through 21 seem to be taken in Sydney and its environs.<\/p>\n

Photo 22 is an homage to Robert Frank’s photo of the same: a car covered in a white tarp, except the atmosphere feels very Ridley Scott Prometheus<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Photos 23 and 24 are night scenes that seem to harbinger more alien action in later photos.<\/p>\n

Photo 25 seems is a car turning up dust. Is it an escape from the aliens?<\/p>\n

Photos 26 to 29 all seem to suggest some sort of alien visitation.<\/p>\n

Photo 30 is the child hurt was very visceral.<\/p>\n

Photos 31-43 seem to have life under the aliens tropes.<\/p>\n

Photo 44 is of the author’s pregnant wife.<\/p>\n

Photo 45 is of the author’s new born son.<\/p>\n

Photo 46 seems to suggest a future family life with the aliens.<\/p>\n

Photo 47 seems to suggest that the aliens have left.<\/p>\n

I can’t help but conclude that Trent Parke told a tale of fiction using completely straight photos, but like any art, this work has its own kind of truth.<\/p>\n

When I saw the squalor that the aborigines were living in in the beginning I couldn’t help but feel a retched sort of optimism. Human beings have survived all sorts of invasions of each other. Shouldn’t they be able to survive an alien one?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For this review of Minutes to Midnight by Trent Parke (2013), I’ll be using the index created here. In a previous blog post I talked about the stylistic and technical aspects of the work, where the filmic qualities and the chance a film process introduces are paramount. This review is just my interpretation of the … Continue reading Minutes to Midnight Trent Parke Review<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[105],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trent-parke"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bracketthis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bracketthis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bracketthis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bracketthis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bracketthis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=871"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bracketthis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":878,"href":"https:\/\/www.bracketthis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871\/revisions\/878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bracketthis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bracketthis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bracketthis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}