Heaven and Earth Magic

I had heard many great things about Harry Smith's Heaven and Earth Magic, but I never saw it. to be correct, I actually did saw a few parts of it, but I never liked it. it has got that kind of style that needs to be appreciated, and because I do not get very much excited by moving paintings, the works of Mister Smith never appealed to me. let's be honest if we can: this is no ordinary movie, but it's no animation film either. it's something in between, something that only exists in it's sole existence. having said that, I hope it's clear I don't like Heaven and Earth Magic. it's too strange for me. there seems to be no story whatsoever, except for a collection of rather sketches than story lines. I love the works of Stan Brakhage, even though they have no storyline neither. but Brakhage's movies are to be seen as random art, Harry Smith's movies however have nothing to do with art. they tell us nothing. but I believe you can give anything a reason of existence, even the films made by Harry Smith (not to be confused with Jack Smith, the godfather of the New York underground experimental gay cinema). Here, you can see many things relate to life and death, hence the strange title. Smith plays with confusion and depth, thereby creating original novelties on the screen. mutilation becomes art, and art becomes reformed, destroying the original being and furthermore changing in another lifestyle. however,if you have never seen a Harry Smith film, these words can't mean anything for you. Harry Smith needs to be viewed many times, his creations and demolition are too strange to understand with a first viewing. I'm a big fan of experimental short films with no sound, but this is silly. the only sound we hear, are coming from animals and things that distract us. Harry Smith uses these sounds to make his collage of life even more absurd. at a certain point, he uses a machine to play tennis with a baby as tennis ball. original, yes, but do we want to see this? no. it's quite boring, playing with life and death in a fictional concept. one thing is sure, of course, once you've seen this movie, you will never forget it.

The thing about Heaven and Earth Magic is the sound design from Harry Smith was more unnerving and queasy than the visuals; the discord among the various cries, wails, barking, the calm of the wind, baby cries and horns and the general industrial cacophony is what makes this so entrancing. Smith reminds us that when you have noise put to visuals it is what makes everything so completely untethered to reality even as these are things that had to be hand crafted and shaped from reality.

You are caught up in what is essentially set pieces about building up and breaking down shapes and people, how some will consume and some will create and some will take away just as quickly. There is no rhyme or reason to anything but there is some sort of dream logic going on, like when the one guy who swallows a helper then gets his eye injected with a needle that makes it bug out.

Some of this - no who are we kidding most of of it - is nonsense and experimentation in shifting around shapes and figures and so on. But I'd be lying if I said I didnt get more into it the longer it went on. I figured this would get tiresome as this pre Terry Gilliam Monty Python approach to cut-out random silliness built and changed over time. What I didn't expect was that I'd want to see what happened to that... watermelon-head guy or if that fish would make a move on that girl.

Drama, man!

I first saw this at a Harry Smith tribute in '93 at the Naropa Institute. I was blown away. This film is avant-guarde. The animation is mind boggling and the use of sound is unforgettable. You will find yourself looking at the world in a very different way after this film. It's very much like Paradjanov in the use of symbols and allegory. Watching Heaven & Earth is like being exposed to a magical universe. A world you've forgotten that you actually already know.

US 66m, B&W Director: Harry Everett Smith

Heaven and Earth Magic is a surreal film fantasy using collage animation with late 19th century graphic images which are reminiscent of Terry Gilliam's animation work with Monty Python. Lacking any semblance of a plot, logic or narrative direction, Heaven and Earth Magic apparently follows the journey of a woman with a toothache to heaven and back, but not after the loss of a watermelon. The film's dreamlike action employs a series of related images and motifs related to death, including skeletal figures of humans and other animals. Visually interesting, for about fifteen minutes, I get the feeling that Heaven and Earth Magic might best be "understood" with the aid of some mind altering substance (Klaus Ming July 2013).

The only thing I knew before I watched this movie that it was supposed to be experimental. Now I think experimental is an understatement, this movie is so abstract and so ambiguous I really don't think I could explain anything about it.

I see some people have enjoyed this movie, but I can't see myself enjoying this. The only movie I can really compare it to is Mad God, in similar fashion there is no dialogue, both movies feel like the creators plucked random scenes from their imagination and turned them into movies. Mad God at least is understandable, but Heaven and Earth Magic is just so filled with abstract meanings that it's almost unwatchable.