Twine / Happy splash, 1999

in co-operation with Louis Andriessen
DVD, colour, 7’29”
edition 500
publisher: Bifrons Foundation, Amsterdam

Note / The Bifrons Stichting in Amsterdam invited Van Warmerdam to make a film with a contemporary composer for a DVD project. Twine is a short film of a girl in a car wash. Every so often her face disappears behind the washcloths as they glide past, as if somehow interweaving with her body. Happy splash is a second film shot in the same car wash, which now swishes back and forth in full swing, interrupted by a shot of a car driving over a large speed bump. Van Warmerdam says of this work: ‘The speed bumps along one of the canals in Amsterdam are extremely high, the size of camels’ humps. When you drive over one in your car, it’s a very funny sensation. When I was invited for a film and music project with Louis Andriessen, I thought I could have him drive over these bumps, juddering and jolting to the rhythm of his composition.’