"Film is rhythm." Hans Richter makes said point with a simple animation involving variously growing and shrinking white squares and rectangles. He did well... this film is very rhythmic. It's like one of those mesmerizing screen-savers, only developed with particular attention to abstract form.
Still, I think one of the more interesting aspects of "Rhythmus 21" is what it ends up stating about the illusion of depth than about rhythm. All of the various ascending and receding shapes look more like they're blocks of set sizes moving forwards and backwards than shapes growing or shrinking in actual size. In other words, they provide a very different effect than what they ARE, which is something to be noted in a film made entirely out of black and white blocks of light.
Indeed, "Rhythmus 21" more comments on how something as plain as putting one block in front of the other makes the human mind assume a foreground/background relationship between the two shapes than it does delight with its rhythmic structure. Again it should be noted that experimental films aren't always successful, and some experiments are successful for reasons outside the point the experimenter is trying to get at.
--PolarisDiB
Still, I think one of the more interesting aspects of "Rhythmus 21" is what it ends up stating about the illusion of depth than about rhythm. All of the various ascending and receding shapes look more like they're blocks of set sizes moving forwards and backwards than shapes growing or shrinking in actual size. In other words, they provide a very different effect than what they ARE, which is something to be noted in a film made entirely out of black and white blocks of light.
Indeed, "Rhythmus 21" more comments on how something as plain as putting one block in front of the other makes the human mind assume a foreground/background relationship between the two shapes than it does delight with its rhythmic structure. Again it should be noted that experimental films aren't always successful, and some experiments are successful for reasons outside the point the experimenter is trying to get at.
--PolarisDiB