Three Warning Signs

Truth in advertising here - it's an experimental film, in black and white, and it appears to be mechanically or computer generated. So there are strobe effects and a howling tone like an Emergency Broadcast System over the top, and then it is over.

In big letters it says THREE warning SIGNS, stark white text leaving afterimages as the screen returns to black. A flash, another flash, and, true to its promise, a third. Then it is over.

The sound is a squalling torment, those flashes a countdown to escape - endured rather than enjoyed, perhaps more rollercoaster than read. Eytan Ipeker created this, but it is left to audiences to understand - there is a tension, and a release.

One is minded of a story about a field interrogation of prisoners in the Middle East - to unsettle them they played, at high volume, heavy metal and children's television themes. The suggestion was that this was deliberate, rather than what was found on the average infantryman's generic music player. Nonetheless, here again are the basic ingredients of the stereoptypical experimental film - black, white, noise. Here too the basic consequences: befuddlement, annoyance, a mild headache.