The Exquisite Hour

A couple of nights ago I attended a program of five experimental short films by Phil Solomon, my first exposure to the artist's work. All of the pieces were the result of altering the surface of found footage, reediting altered surfaces of different films to form new, suggestive wholes. The resulting images were generally very spectral- as if attempting to depict the absence of memory, or perhaps a more literal ghost- maybe that of, ahem, cinema itself?

The two films that were most clearly and specifically interpretable were probably my least favorites. The first, "The Secret Garden" was clearly about recalling one's consciousness during childhood, when memory and fantasy intertwine. The weakest of the five films, "Night of the Meek" was one of the most aesthetically beautiful- the blackness of the majority of the screen seeming strangely pristine. Yet its subject matter was overly literal- the destructive nature of the Nazis- swastikas and goose-steps were clearly depicted in the altered footage. The Nazis were sinister- who would have thought?

My favorite piece of the night was "The Exquisite Hour". It alternates between motifs of human farewells and of nature footage of critters sometimes hunting and killing each other, other-times just enjoying themselves in their natural habitat. (Those looked like happy zebras!) My over-all impression of "Exquisite" was that it was a meditation on death in the most general sense- as goodbye, as destruction, violence, but also of universal belonging. We're all headed to the same place- by whatever means- where/ what ever that place might be!