A collection of three remarkable works by Sadie Benning, produced between 1995 and 1998, including German Song, The Judy Spots, and Flat is Beautiful. Shot in black and white Super-8 film, German Song muses on a disengaged youth and grey afternoons spent wandering, and features the hard-edged music of Come, an alternative band from Boston.
The Judy Spots is a tape composed of five episodes featuring Judy, a teenage girl puppet made of papier maché as she plays in a band, works at a fast food restaurant, shops at the mall, and feels scared at night.
Flat is Beautiful is an experimental, live-action cartoon narrative using masks, animation, subtitles, drawings, and dramatic scenes to investigate the psychic life of an androgynous eleven year-old girl. Growing up in an working class neighborhood with her single mother and gay roommate, Taylor confronts the loneliness of living between masculine and feminine in a culture obsessed with defining gender difference. Shifting between black and white film and grainy pixelvision video, Flat is Beautiful explores the internal and external worlds of sad people.
