Stan Brakhage is best known for experimenting with the film medium itself--painting on film, gluing moth wings onto film, and other unusual cinematic techniques. Though he made Desist Film the old-fashioned way, with actors performing in front of a camera, it's just as inscrutable and bizarre as his other experimentations.
I don't remember everything that happens in the film, but it focuses on a group of burned out teenagers who entertain themselves in various ways (one of them practices lighting five matches at once, and another tries to build a structure out of various books). Like any good avant-garde film, the on-screen action can't really be understood as any kind of logical narrative. What matters is the feelings and moods and ideas evoked by the film, and Desist Film is a strangely unnerving, creepy movie experience. Though some of the editing is a bit too disorienting for its own good in my opinion, I don't think I'll ever forget the movie's very last shot. Even in a film where nothing makes sense, that last image is unspeakably chilling.
Highly recommended if you ever get the chance to see it (I saw it in a film class at the University of Colorado in Boulder).
I don't remember everything that happens in the film, but it focuses on a group of burned out teenagers who entertain themselves in various ways (one of them practices lighting five matches at once, and another tries to build a structure out of various books). Like any good avant-garde film, the on-screen action can't really be understood as any kind of logical narrative. What matters is the feelings and moods and ideas evoked by the film, and Desist Film is a strangely unnerving, creepy movie experience. Though some of the editing is a bit too disorienting for its own good in my opinion, I don't think I'll ever forget the movie's very last shot. Even in a film where nothing makes sense, that last image is unspeakably chilling.
Highly recommended if you ever get the chance to see it (I saw it in a film class at the University of Colorado in Boulder).