Deed Undone (Ongedaan Gedaan)

As lucid as it is hypnotic, this Van de Staak classic finds two couples, portrayed by eight actors, across a variety of settings as they laugh, quarrel, write notes, fuss around, make love, and simply speak. Exemplifying the filmmaker’s singular cinematic lexicon, nothing connects, yet there are patterns and ruptures, as well as poems by Gerrit Kouwenaar appearing as intertitles throughout, giving a strange sense of unease to these ordinary yet fascinating scenes. Van de Staak said of this work, “I leave out the why as well as the results. What’s left is the moment of endeavor.” 

The film screens alongside Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet’s 1977 short, Every Revolution is a Throw of the Dice, a cinematic recitation of Stéphane Mallarmé’s elusive free verse poem, “A Throw of the Dice Will Never Abolish Chance.” The filmmakers dedicated it to “Frans van de Staak, Jacques Rivette, Jean Narboni, and a few others.”