The Last Angel of History: Montage Techniques and a Soviet Connection

 

The Last Angel of History is a short but powerful documentary that speaks to the origins and developments of Afrofuturism. In particular, the film connects the main themes of sci-fi (estrangement, abduction, alienation) with the Black experience of displacement and loss of historical roots. The documentary interviews several significant Black creators who largely contributed to the afro-futurist movement, among which were George Clinton, Greg Tate, and Samuel Delany. All of these conversations are connected through the fictional journeys of a time-traveling data thief, capturing the unique style of the Black Audio Film Collective. 

Having watched the film, I was taken by Mark Bound’s quote in The Ships Landed Long Ago: Afrofuturism and Black SF that emphasizes “...Sf has traditionally been constructed to privilege white American pulp-and-paperback and European literary traditions but also, inextricably, to exclude black voices and black experience.” (184). The documentary emphasizes the role of sci-fi through an afro-futurist lens to counter these culturally homogenous ideas. Bound points out that normal science fiction seems to normalize the ideologies of our existing world and only talk about race on an abstract level, simultaneously prohibiting important discussions of historical and contemporary conditions. 

Something that struck me about the documentary was the use of montage techniques. Laura U. Marks emphasized this in her article Manners of Unfolding in The Last Angel of History. She describes two types of montage: First a montage contained within a single frame that contains a variety of contrasting images. Second, “noncognitive montage”, or images and words that speed by too fast to fully comprehend. These reminded me of our previous discussions about Quentin VerCetty, who uses montage techniques and “glowing eyes” (similar to the data thief) to craft futures influenced by both technology and tradition. 

This struck me as a student who is more familiar with Soviet futurism. At the beginning of the 20th century, Soviet futurists relied heavily upon montage techniques to build images of a future enlightened by communism. In particular, Ukrainian futurist Maria Siniakova used a multitude of contrasting images to talk about the destruction of the Ukrainian landscape and the unique effects of World War I on women. She likewise combined traditional Ukrainian imagery and customs with a view of the future, enforcing a connection to the Ukrainian past in the construction of a Soviet-Ukrainian future.

(Left) Maria Siniakova. Eva. 1920. Paper, watercolor. Private collection, Kiev.

(Right) Maria Siniakova. The War. 1915. Paper, watercolor. Private collection of Igor Dychenko, Kiev.