What's in a name? Michael Moschen is a student of motion. He studies the motion of various geometric shapes, viewed from all angles. He is a juggler; not just a simple jugglerhe has elevated juggling to a magnificent art form.
The film has a great variety of substructures: street performances, a performance in an art museum, his experiments in motion, scenes in which he trains performers, interviews with Michael and his family and some of the most incredible stage performances that I have ever witnessed in my seventy years.
His juggling is amazingly varied and incredibly complex. He can juggles with both hands and both feet. In one scene he is juggling many balls inside of a triangular frame, with each ball striking three sides before returning. A musical rhythm is established by the bouncing of the balls; it is held for a while and then suddenly changed to a different rhythm, thereby making sound a new sense integrated into juggling. He can juggle balls by bouncing them off a great variety of objects at long distances; the accuracy and precision required is unbelievable. It is almost as if a special effects director had created the film but the film is real.
The final and most amazing scene begins with him, kneeling, juggling four glass spheres within each hand, for a total of eight spheres, three filling each hand with another resting on top. The eight balls are continually in motion. Then he releases one sphere and gives a totally different performance. He continues this until he is down to one ball, producing eight different performances, each one suited to the number of balls being held. The background music is unobtrusive but captivating. The overall effect is mesmerizing every time that I watch it.
After seeing a tape of part of his performance I purchased the video. It was the most expensive video purchase that I had ever made but I just had to own it. I rank it ten out of ten on my own personal scale. I have currently ranked 1870 films and only 49 of them are tens.
The film has a great variety of substructures: street performances, a performance in an art museum, his experiments in motion, scenes in which he trains performers, interviews with Michael and his family and some of the most incredible stage performances that I have ever witnessed in my seventy years.
His juggling is amazingly varied and incredibly complex. He can juggles with both hands and both feet. In one scene he is juggling many balls inside of a triangular frame, with each ball striking three sides before returning. A musical rhythm is established by the bouncing of the balls; it is held for a while and then suddenly changed to a different rhythm, thereby making sound a new sense integrated into juggling. He can juggle balls by bouncing them off a great variety of objects at long distances; the accuracy and precision required is unbelievable. It is almost as if a special effects director had created the film but the film is real.
The final and most amazing scene begins with him, kneeling, juggling four glass spheres within each hand, for a total of eight spheres, three filling each hand with another resting on top. The eight balls are continually in motion. Then he releases one sphere and gives a totally different performance. He continues this until he is down to one ball, producing eight different performances, each one suited to the number of balls being held. The background music is unobtrusive but captivating. The overall effect is mesmerizing every time that I watch it.
After seeing a tape of part of his performance I purchased the video. It was the most expensive video purchase that I had ever made but I just had to own it. I rank it ten out of ten on my own personal scale. I have currently ranked 1870 films and only 49 of them are tens.
