ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author offer a critical review of practices of experimental film-making and explore their possible relevance for anthropological research and representation. As a parallel strand to the anthropological rethinking of "montage" which, after experimental beginnings, is now a feature of mainstream narrative cinema, the author shall explore the conceptual and theoretical potentials and challenges of experimental film-making for anthropology. However, whilst exploring the experimental potential for anthropological research and representation of experimental film and other optical experiments in the arts, the author do not mean to privilege vision as the only or indeed royal road to cognition in anthropology, as Willerslev suggests they should. As the people have seen, some of the theoretical positions adopted in experimental film-making and optical experimentation in the arts are relevant as counterexamples, highlighting the contrast with theoretical or practical positions held in anthropology.
