Éléonore Weber interprets American and French army footage and reflects in this melancholic essay about limits.

Pilots as videographers, the camera as a weapon, and the body that merges with the device. Here the image is no longer a testimony but a part of the weapon itself.

These images are not recorded to be spread in the media. Purely operational, they are only handed to a superior to ratify if the shot was right.  They are not overly stylized either, but after a while, the war seems to be in another place, the images of the explosions seem to wear off the destruction that comes with them.  They create their reality only through what they can see through the camera, the dizzy zoom, the detail that loses itself in the big picture. From the distance, landscapes, people, animals, cars become only lines and patterns. People on the ground stop being people to become characters from a video game. Sometimes they don't run anymore, they know how they appear and that there’s someone that's always watching and the constant sound of the helicopters becomes the usual soundscape. The only answer is to surrender. It is not an image of pain, in these recordings, suffering traces are gone. The loss of visual contact is the most disturbing thing that could happen to pilots. Losing their enemy or their traces brings bewilderment. Pilots wait and doubt. Subtle differences get lost in time. It might be a soldier or a farmer, the limits are blurry and shape the doubt culture. In a scene, a soldier sees some kids and seems to forget his job and instead frame and portray them.

After a while, clarity is difficult to find. New cameras erase the night in order to see meticulously. Nothing can be hidden. What else can be eradicated in favor of optimization and effectivity? If the material world has trespassed and new realities appear, subjectively, according to what device every individual uses, limits will be fog and diffuse into the ultimate light. 

 Carla Chasco is an art critique specializing in film, from Buenos Aires Argentina, currently studying curatorial studies degree at UNA. She has previously worked as a costume designer but nowadays is advocated the other side of the film.