The Little Machine

Sara Suranyi, known from Schmidt Jr.'s 12 Uhr Mittags – High Noon, The Merry Widow and Mein Begräbnis ein Erlebnis (My Funeral an Adventure), now active as Sara Berger in painting and photography, is co-creator and star of this one-shot movie dated "Vienna 1977". Does the eponymous little machine allude to the pubic hair framed in close-up by the zip fastener of a pair of jeans? Well, it's not about sexuality, but rather about technology: the zip is broken, so Suranyi uses a safety pin to close the jeans fly. And to close the film. (In Suranyi/Berger's list of works, this film is listed under Die Sicherheitsnadel – The Safety Pin.) Almost: all that's missing are her hands, contentedly placed on her hips, a close-up (until it becomes blurred) of the improvised solution to the technical problem – a case of functioning through poetically deviant use, almost a "desiring machine", albeit a little one. The safety pin reappears stuck through the paper of the film's end title "Ende – 1977": a touch of punk beginnings. (Drehli Robnik)