I finally saw this companion piece to 13 Lakes last night at the Ontario Cinematheque and I must say, it is absolutely breathtaking. It is as vigorous and intense as anything in the cannon of Brakhage. For the patient viewer it stands as a philosophical meditation on the ever-transforming landscape of nature as well as a testament to how much beauty stands outside of the realm of man. When you see a plane or a bird, they seem so alien and intrusive to this world just outside our own.

The clouds sometime seem to have faces, you want to project anthropomorphic features onto them, they shift like Rorsach paintings, sometimes the clouds appear as an ocean, or a vast, impenetrable mountain range...

This is a limitless film for someone who possesses even a modicum of imagination. I also thought about how many great people looked to the skies for truth and enlightenment. Franklin's experiments with lightning, Wittgenstein's experiments with wind and kite coordinates.

This is epic, heroic film-making. If Benning hadn't have made this film, someone had too.

The only problem I have with the film is semantic, and will probably only bother me. 13 Lakes was about 13 different lakes. 10 Skies is about ONE sky, segmented by breaks between ten ten-minute film reels. This segmentation and Benning's way of framing it, make me wonder if I'm missing something rhetorical in the piece, outside of its intuitive formalism.

The other thing about this film is that visually its very straining on the eyes because there's multiple patterns moving at the same time, all the time, endlessly layered, endlessly emerging but also slow moving. Haze comes like a fade in, but its opacity begs the absolute limit of looking. The result is as close to a trance effect as you can find in film-making.

Looking forward to seeing more of Benning's fabulous work.

An experimental film portraying different skies in very long takes.

The people behind the scenes at IMDb share their favorite movies and series of the year.

IMDb Staff Picks: Our Favorites of 2024

IMDb celebrates the Indian movies that resonated with people worldwide in 2024. Find out who ranked in the top 10!

The Top 10 Most Popular Indian Movies of 2024

From memorable moments to stunning red carpet looks, check out all our favorite photos of 2024.

The Year in Pictures

By what name was Ten Skies (2004) officially released in Canada in English?

You could do 100 skies from only one camera position

Ver la información de producción en IMDbPro

Ten Skies

Fotos

Más como esto

Argumento

Opiniones de usuarios3

You could do 100 skies from only one camera position

Selecciones populares

Detalles

Especificaciones técnicas

Noticias relacionadas

Contribuir a esta página

Más para explorar

Visto recientemente