Spectrum Shorts screening - short review - ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE - WAYS OF SEEING 2013 by Donna Donna Verheijden

Ways of Seeing was a four-part BBC television series written by John Berger back in 1972. The series aimed to take digs at the Western culture in general and its ideologies as well as casting a shadow in its culture of aesthetics and glamour. 

Although it was made more than four decades ago, Berger’s words still ring true in today’s society, and this is a point that was picked up by young filmmaker Donna Verheijden, who used them to construct a new piece more relevant to modern times. The resulting short film is called All the World’s a Stage – Ways of Seeing 2013. Through a montage of more or less familiar images from TV shows and adverts, an energetic and sometimes aggressive soundtrack, we get a vivid and even drastic idea of the surrogate modern society and how its perception of anything from beauty to moral standards and social acceptance is so simply bent and altered out of recognition.

All the while, Berger’s own narration philosophises and legitimises it all by repeating what he had said back in the original Ways of Seeing and offered a new perspective on the matter. An intense experience due to tasteful editing as well as a sharp eye for composite cohesion, All the World’s a Stage – Ways of Seeing 2013 is a powerful statement and served as a welcome accentuation of all too familiar themes at the 43^rd International Film Festival Rotterdam.