Pete Karkut - Toads mouth (2011)

 

 

 

Toads Mouth was filmed in the garden of a local cafe at the time of the riots in London this August.
It became my reaction to these riots. The garden has a very English suburban atmosphere that is highlighted by a soundtrack that uses a [(Hurdy Gurdy)], an instrument common at the time of the peasants' revolt that happened in London in 1381. The calm of a suburban cafe garden is broken by gunshots creating an air of menace. At the time of the riots I was most surprised by how fragile the rule of law in London was, and how completely it vanished. In my film we never see anyone and only hear the guns. Yet in the mind of the viewer the garden becomes a war zone as the audio narrative evolves. The invisible customers at the cafe receive their coffee and cake and carry on as if everything were normal. The government had a similar reaction to the riots, dismissing them as simple acts of criminal behaviour and overseeing a return to normality without publicly offering a viable set of reasons behind the breakdown of law. The soundtrack decays into chaos and fades into the peace of the garden only to be disrupted by a machine gun battle. On a personal level the garden represents the mental peace of mind I had thought invulnerable before being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. A place of suburban calm full of transient blooms. A suburbia never far from the fertilizing effect of multiple cultures. The Eastern influences woven into the music portray this aspect of the city, as well as my keen interest and participation in the meditational wisdom of Eastern culture. Practices that have made my M.S. easier to deal with.

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Directed and filmed by Pete Karkut

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