williamaveryhudson

Sweetgrass (Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Ilisa Barbash, USA) (World Premiere)
Berlinale Forum, Friday, 13 February
Read the Forum synopsis

It is over - the last sheep drive into Montana’s Beartooth Mountains. Unbeknownst to anthropologists Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Ilisa Barbash, they are filming the end of these biblical-scale migrations from lowland ranches to mountain grazing lands. Casualties not so much of environmentalist protection of public lands as the hard economic reality of declining sales of lamb.

Cowboys singing in the night, cursing in the day, as sheep will be sheep and grizzly bears try to eat as many as they can. Sheep as far as the eye can see. Lambs gamboling - they really do gambol, as we can see. And the heartbreaking beauty of the American West, seen in a 360-degree pan as a cowboy calls home to his mother, crying in his exhaustion and pain. His horse skin and bones, dogs too tired to run. “I want to love these mountains, but I’m beginning to hate them.”

Posts for peace, sound environmental stewardship, humane economic policy and promotion of human health and creativity. About the blogger.

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When It Was Blue (Jennifer Reeves, USA/Iceland) (European Premiere, special screening)
Berlinale Forum, Friday, 13 February
Read the Forum synopsis

Paradoxically mournful and optimistic about the state of our planet and the 16mm medium, this triumph of handmade film, film score, live music, and skilled projection can be presented only at a few venues. I was fortunate to be in the audience at Delphi Filmpalast, and wish more theaters had the resources to deliver art like this.

Jennifer Reeves’ masterpiece employs double projection of superimposed photography and painting in multiple layers against a similarly superimposed sound design of recorded and live music. The effect is variously of nature and the human presence as abstract imagery with extended moments of naturalistic documentation.

A moment of breathtaking beauty - a flowered yard - and then it’s over, never to be experienced like this again.

Reeves edited the two films to create one, with space for subtle variations at each screening. The film was shot from 1997 to 2007, and edited/painted over a four-year period. Icelandic composer Skúli Sverrisson composed the score at the same time, in collaboration. The result is a wonder, connected to the human heartbeat, pregnant with loss and hope.

So many theaters have stopped projecting 16mm. And such flawless projection is rare. Delphi is to be commended.

Posts for peace, sound environmental stewardship, humane economic policy and promotion of human health and creativity. About the blogger.

Technorati tags:
film festivals berlin film festival

Comments and Links Appreciated!