Rebecca Jane Arthur
Hit Him on the Head with a Hard, Heavy Hammer
16 MM, COLOUR, 4:3, ENGLISH SPOKEN WITH DUTCH & FRENCH SUBTITLES, BE/UK, 2023, 49’





Hit Him on the Head with a Hard, Heavy Hammer departs from the handwritten memoir of the filmmaker’s father and his experience of displacement during wartime. Referring to the notion Thomas Hardy termed ‘The Self-Unseeing’ in his eponymous 1901 poem, the film returns to childhood and the matters that harden us: upbringing, social status, education, labour, and familial bonds. The memoir weaves into the film as both a contemplation on mortality and an illustration of fading memory, reflecting on how we pen our pasts and how they can be re-told.
2023
Open City Documentary Festival
London, GB
Etats généraux du film documentaire
Lussas, BE
beursschouwburg
Brussels, BE
Courtisane Notes on Cinema
Ghent, BE