Excellent short film. In addition to previous comments, I'd like to add that the The Girl Chewing Gum could be seen as a visual rendering of the ubiquitous and unanswerable question whether "art imitates life" or "life imitates art".
The question this film actually poses, seems to be if reality exists in itself (that is, independent of something like culture, emotion, our actions in it, etc), which implies that we, human beings that we are, can never really touch upon it (that we are mere spectators) - or that reality is the product of man's intervening in it, the product of our relations with it and the actions we make.
In other words: does the girl chew her gum because she is "a girl chewing gum" (existing independently from her on screen appearance), or is she chewing her gum for the sole reason that she is being perceived chewing (by the camera, and by us)?
The question this film actually poses, seems to be if reality exists in itself (that is, independent of something like culture, emotion, our actions in it, etc), which implies that we, human beings that we are, can never really touch upon it (that we are mere spectators) - or that reality is the product of man's intervening in it, the product of our relations with it and the actions we make.
In other words: does the girl chew her gum because she is "a girl chewing gum" (existing independently from her on screen appearance), or is she chewing her gum for the sole reason that she is being perceived chewing (by the camera, and by us)?