Jane, Tarzán no era tan guay
2016 · 3m · España
Directed by Begoña Vicario
Genres: experimental, surrealism
Tones: contemplative, surreal
A reinterpretation of the famous scene in which Tarzan and Jane swim together from Tarzan and His Mate (1934), where colour, abstract forms and rhythms speak of a change of paradigm.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Vicario's doing the obvious thing here—decolonizing Tarzan through abstraction—which feels more like film-school exercise than genuine subversion; the surrealism is competent but doesn't crack anything open that hasn't already been cracked.
A deliberate intervention into cinema history that understands its lineage—repurposing a 1934 footage as palimpsest, where formal abstraction becomes the language of critique; the restraint and conceptual rigor place it squarely in the lineage of feminist archive cinema.
The decision to work within and against the original footage rather than replace it—letting Tarzan and His Mate's imagery bleed through layers of color and geometric abstraction—is where the economy of means becomes a statement about looking itself.