Dark. 1973-74. Directed by Paul Winkler.

(3/13/01-3/16/01)

I really liked this one. Paul Winkler's film is about Australian aborigines. He contrasts footage of a contemporary aborigine political demonstration with images of the past. The contemporary footage was all shot in broad daylight; the images of the past are surrounded by black or set against a black background. So the present is full of light while the past is surrounded by darkness.

All of the imagery is permeated by motion. The footage of the political demonstration is packed with fast pans and what looks like quick zooming in and out. But the zooms are so much faster than a camera could do that I suspect they were made differently than zooming with the camera--probably through re-photography. The imagery of the past likewise has a charging, pulsating quality and the images are shown multiple times at once, a la Andy Warhol. This driving motion seems to accelerate as the film proceeds.

The program note identifies the "images of the past" as "primitive cave drawings, the sacred Ayers Rock and, most particularly, the head of an old aborigine warrior." I was aware of the cave drawings only at the beginning; otherwise the only image I could discern was the head of the warrior. I didn't recognize the Ayers Rock at all. Some of the imagery looked completely abstract as in the manner of a lot of Brakhage's work of the 1970s. It was footage of something, but what that something was was undiscernable.

A lot of this film reminded me of Ed Emshwiller's Relativity, although I barely remember that film. I think it would be very interesting to see the two of them together.

The film had what appeared to be an electronic soundtrack. It had a modern industrial quality to it. It really seemed to work in this film. It was like it emphasized the modern aspect of the film--that even though it reaches back in time as far as its subject is concerned it is still rooted in a modern perspective or views that subject through a modern prism.

I think that this film is more enjoyable for its style than for its subject matter. In fact, I think that the motion and manipulation of the imagery tend to move one's awareness away from what is happening. I mean this with regard to the contemporary footage. I became aware of this in a scene where policemen (or military personnel) were beating up one of the demonstrators. I suddenly realized that up until this point I had only been vaguely aware of what had been going on. Yes, I knew it was a demonstration, but I was more interested in the pulsating rhythms of what seemed like camera movement but really wasn't.