Of the three half-hour films made as part of Hollis Frampton's "Solariumagelani" series for the Magellan cycle, "Autumnal Equinox" is the most visually interesting if not structurally interesting. While one might misconstrue this twenty-seven minute work as being a mere documentary of meat-processing, that assumption, however logical, would be mistaken. On the outside, this film appears to be a basic excuse to shock and gross-out audiences; on the inside, it is a uniquely abstract work due to the lack of context for its images. This idea was one originally investigated in "Winter Solstice" earlier on in the series through the eye-catching visuals of sparks and glowing metal, but that film while visually beautiful, was not unique in what it presented. "Summer Solstice" was abstract in its shooting pattern, but contained the context for the viewer to know what they were looking at and thus did not exercise this principle. "Autumnal Equinox", however, has no context for its images and consists largely of closeup shots of the action rather than an overall view; and while the viewer may understand basically what they are looking at, the feel of the film is different due to how the action is shot.
Meant to be viewed on the Autumnal Equinox of the title as part of the cycle, the film was shot inside of a Minnesota slaughterhouse where animals, particularly cows, are butchered to be made into various meat products. Only instead of showing long sweeping views of the place like a workplace documentary would, Frampton makes the film into an abstraction by filming graphic and horrifying closeups of the blood covering the floor, internal organs being ripped out of the cows, meat-scraped skulls, livers and intestines being cut, etc. Thus, rather than the film seeming like a recording of everyday work in the factory, the location of said factory is transformed into an abstract world of carcasses and gore. "Winter Solstice", although using the same idea of lacking context in imagery, is not nearly as effective due to less interesting visuals, and this film is fascinating if one can see the imagery as more than just a lot of ripped-up animals. Not one for the squeamish obviously, but an interesting abstraction and definitely more than the average educational documentary.