Film is. consists almost exclusively, of sequences from existing
scientific films. These films are about the acrobatic flights of
pigeons, the intelligence testing of apes; about "reversed worlds" and
stereoscopic vision; hurricanes and impact waves in the air. How glass
breaks, children walk and how a Mercedes crashes into a stone wall in
slow motion. The contempt with which scientific films are received is
not directed against the content, but rather against their
conventional, unimaginative, ridiculous and commentary-contaminated
appearance. Similarly, the fascination with some of the teaching films
can be attributed almost exclusively to the power of their images -
images which one has never seen, even in the cinema.
Film is. brings an abundance of these images together. One can feel
not only the politics, but also the singular poetry of scientific film,
which often makes use of "experimental" techniques - extreme slow
motion, extreme time lapse, telescopic or microscopic camera work,
solarising, x-ray film.
Film is. is a poetic film in itself. Just how the various pieces find
their own place and rhythm reminds one of modern poetry or the photo
work of the American artist John Baldessari. Pictures which, from their
origins, have nothing to do with each other, which don't "belong
together", are compared, tied together, fused with each other. (Alexander Horwath)
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