1 review
Flashes
Around seven years ago, not long after I received my first video camera, I was excited to film my first lightning storm. It was a dark night, rain was coming down reasonably hard, but I was most enthusiastic about capturing the electricity bolts that streaked ominously across the sky. Having no good system for predicting where the flashes would come from, I kept filming continuously, aiming my camera at random patches of blackened sky. By the end of it all, I had more than half an hour of footage, most of it useless – edited together, the actual lightning flashes (let alone those ever-elusive bolts) comprised about a minute of film. Stan Brakhage's 'Fire of Waters (1965)' feels exactly like my home movie before I edited it. If the flashes in the night sky are the film's point of focus, then we must also endure the intervals between each flash, irksome extended periods of silence and blackness that approach and surpass the tedium threshold.
The film was apparently inspired by a letter Brakhage received from poet Robert Kelly, which remarked: "The truth of the matter is this: that man lives in a fire of waters and will live eternally in the first taste." I'm still working that one out, and how this relates to the images of lightning (at this point, I'm not sure even sure that the flashes should be taken literally). If anything, then 'Fire of Waters' is notable among Brakhage's work in that it utilises a soundtrack, however sparse. At one point, the background noise dissolves into what sounds like radio static, a musical transmission being disrupted by meteorological forces. More interesting, however, is how the film concludes. Abruptly, Brakhage removes the viewer's blindfold, revealing an ordinary suburban street, followed by a shrill, unsettling whine on the soundtrack– perhaps that of a distressed dog. Thus, this experimental short is a sporadically interesting, but ultimately tiresome exercise. In other words, only recommended for the filmmaker's most ardent devotees.
The film was apparently inspired by a letter Brakhage received from poet Robert Kelly, which remarked: "The truth of the matter is this: that man lives in a fire of waters and will live eternally in the first taste." I'm still working that one out, and how this relates to the images of lightning (at this point, I'm not sure even sure that the flashes should be taken literally). If anything, then 'Fire of Waters' is notable among Brakhage's work in that it utilises a soundtrack, however sparse. At one point, the background noise dissolves into what sounds like radio static, a musical transmission being disrupted by meteorological forces. More interesting, however, is how the film concludes. Abruptly, Brakhage removes the viewer's blindfold, revealing an ordinary suburban street, followed by a shrill, unsettling whine on the soundtrack– perhaps that of a distressed dog. Thus, this experimental short is a sporadically interesting, but ultimately tiresome exercise. In other words, only recommended for the filmmaker's most ardent devotees.