La région centrale (1971)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Director:

Michael Snow

Plot Keywords:

Quebec | Avant Garde | No Dialogue | Experimental Film | Independent Film

Runtime:

180 min

Country:

Canada

Color:

Color

Certification:

USA:Not Rated

Filming Locations:

Chicoutimi, Québec, Canada

Trivia:

Entirely shot using a robotized camera set on the top of a mountain in the Canadian wilderness - in winter. The camera was mounted on a mechanical arm that could move in any direction (even upside down). Using instructions recorded on magnetic tape, the filmakers could control the arm's movement, creating short "routines" that had do be checked and programmed daily. During the entire movie the only sound heard are mechanical blips and electronic noises synchronized with the camera movement. In an interview, Michael Snow said that his aim to show the kind of images that an alien probe landed on Earth would report back home.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Blow Out (1981)

Another weird effort by Snow

Warning. This film is not for everyone. Don't expect any narrative.

Following "Wavelength", Michael Snow made two films. "Standard Time", an eight minute series of pans and tilts in an apartment living room, and "Back and Forth", a more extended analysis. Both films continue his obsession with exploring the camera's relationships with space and time.

But with "La Region Centrale", Snow manages to create moving images that could not have possibly been observed by the human eye.

To capture these images, Snow designed and built a machine which would allow his camera to move smoothly about several different axes at various speeds. Snow placed this device on a mountain peak in Quebec and then programmed it to provide a series of continuously changing views of the landscape.

Initially the camera does a simple 360° pass (which serves to map out the terrain) but as the film progresses, increasingly stranger views are provided.

8/10