Absolutely lovely little series of abstractions. Knowing that this guy is also a career pornographer is the coolest shit ever

Love the dynamic range on this thing, gradient after gradient after gradient - it’s like riding a rollercoaster! More …ere erera… than it is Brakhage, but recognizably its own thing.

More than anything else feels like a light show for a middling psych band, fundamentally unserious vibe. Triple screen layout is occasionally electrifying (and I imagine would be much more so if I was actually watching triple 16mm projection rather than a Blu-Ray facsimile) but more often is just kinda corny looking. Still: oooooh lights go whirl… yay… so pretty………..

The logical extreme of the long-exposure light-trail play in films like Ito’s Thunder (certainly not the first or only film to do that but definitely an unforgettable use case), or maybe something like Thomas Wilfred’s Lumia. Subtle thing - the multi-colored optical printing ends up translating to the scratches on the film showing up with different colors in the final print, which honestly seems like it could be fodder for a whole separate film but is just a background detail here.

Fits in better with Rekveld’s later work than I initially thought - it hones in on chaotic natural systems (tidal cycles and the way light reflects off water, tree growth, weather) and mediates them through technology to the point of abstraction. Of course, that’s kind of secondary to the fact that it’s a fairly straightforward optical printer workout with a sick soundtrack, definitely nowhere near as concept-forward as what would come next, but definitely pointing the way!

I’m always a sucker for films that investigate not only the materiality but the depth of the film strip, and while I don’t think this is a hugely insightful or earth shattering take on that subject matter, it is, as these things tend to be, terrifically exciting to look at. There’s a brief age where the film is cutting between completely different ostensibly black frames, which was something I hadn’t seen before that I found pretty interesting - wish that thread had been developed a bit more, but no complaints about the flurry of imageless imagery on display!

Here’s to another goddamn new year! I have seen so many movies try very hard to be evocative in the ways this pulls off seemingly effortlessly - a lot of those movies are good too but this is the only thing I’ve seen that meaningfully feels like a follow up/improvement on someone like Belson (no slouch himself!), trimmed of the kitsch and mysticism without losing any of the sensory pleasure or awe.

Every sculpture should get one of these. I want a LIGHT-SPACE MODULATOR so bad bros

My main experience with this kind of 20’s German abstract animation is the Richter stuff, which is ofc very geometric and full of hard lines and sharp angles, so I was sort of floored by the fluidity and subtlety of the texture and pace here - more reminiscent of later NFB experiments than it is anything contemporary.