Hey folks, Harry here with the film most likely to take you where you want to go with some acid or shrooms. From the sound of this, it feels like SovereignX enjoyed this trip of a film. Personally experimental work like this can really put you in an interesting place. Here ya go...
Harry!
Greetings from The Zion-Curtain! The home of the 2002 Winter Mo-lympics! I'm a film student at the University of Utah and a Sundance veteran patron. Last night I had the pleasure of checking out Bill Morrison's experimental film, Decasia. It was absolutely stunning. Morrison has collected old discarded film remnants and spliced them together through his optical printer. All of the film stock used was in an impossible state of natural decomposition. They had been solarized, torn, scratched, burned and aged beyond use. That is until Morrison edited them together with a dark symphonic score composed by Michael Gordon.
The result is a mesmerizing 70-minute journey into oblivion. And though I might have enjoyed the piece more under the influence of a pleasant hallucinogen, the work completely placed me in a trance like state of ecstastic wonder! My brain was opened up to possibilities in both the form and function of cinema (I am definetely using my University's optical printer for my next short film!). And though this is a film working primarily with abstractions -- there are clear themes of collapse, decay and obsolesence that make a significant statement on our collective humanity. We are all fighting against a natural condition of entropy. We want to preserve and sustain, even while life moves us inevitably towards death. Morrison embraces this understanding and presents us with images that though, dystopian and quasi-nihilistic, also seem right, natural and somehow nurturing.
I felt like I could be obliterated and annhilated in an instant! And somehow I was okay with that. We are all part of the grand cycle of life and death. Don't fight it -- embrace it -- and make cool art out of it along the way!
Sadly, the screening for Decasia was barely half full. Surprise, surprise! Everybody here seems to want to see the latest "indie" film starring Matt Damon, Jennifer Aniston or Julianne Moore. But having attended the festival for years, the real hidden treats come out of the Frontier, World Cinema and Documentary categories. The majority of the other films will have some kind of nation-wide release. You'll see them eventually. But a gem like Decasia isn't likely to have much more cinematic exposure. Festivals are the best opportunity to catch the best cinema out on the fringe. That's me and my soapbox!
Peace Out!
SovereignX
