“This film is dedicated to my darkness, my Dirkness, my Dutchness […] I’m unfinished, I’m incomplete” —Dirk de Bruyn
Dirk de Bruyn (b. 1950) is a Dutch Australian filmmaker, author, and programmer who has spent five decades creating largely independent, no-budget films that are deeply concerned with materiality, rhythm, trauma, and memory. His 1987 feature Homecomings is a landmark diary film that merges various ideas that characterize his oeuvre—flicker effects, time-lapse, Letrasetting, scratching and painting on film—in a stirring meditation on his identity as a migrant living in Australia. 25 years after emigrating, he and his family visit Holland and it is through photographs, home videos, and poignant self-reflection that we understand how de Bruyn experiences what he calls “traumatic paradox.” As he explains in his book The Performance of Trauma in Moving Image Art (2014), one’s personal recollection of previous events necessitates (re-)narrativization; film is not beholden to such structure. As such, Homecomings sees footage become disrupted and ruptured by animated sequences that become a futile attempt at “remembering the remembering.” With a soundtrack by Michael Luck—a composer he collaborated with throughout the 1980s—and with components lifted directly from his previous works, Homecomings is a culmination of his practices and experiences. Beyond its importance in the history of Australian film, Homecomings is a major work from one of avant-garde film’s most overlooked artists.
In the spirit of de Bruyn’s DIY endeavors, Homecomings is being screened at various microcinemas across the US, marking the first time the complete film has been shown in North America. When de Bruyn visited New York in 1983 to screen a program of Australian films (with works by Marcus Bergner, Marie Hoy, Chris Knowles, and Arthur & Corinne Cantrill), he consulted Jonas Mekas about completing Homecomings since he was having difficulty doing so. Mekas told him to “just finish it”—something he did with Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania (1972). This multi-city screening happened in a similarly spontaneous, instinctive manner.
Digital projection. Homecomings will be preceded by de Bruyn’s Frames (1986). Special thanks to Dirk de Bruyn.
