...ere erera baleibu izik subua aruaren... (1970) User Reviews

Rorschach film - participation invited

[oOgiandujaOo_and_Eddy_Merckx · 10/10 · 26 April 2011]

ere erera baleibu izik subua aruaren… played at the Tate Modern in London on 17th April 2011 with director José Antonio Sistiaga in attendance. He gave, from the sounds of it, a rather well-worn speech indicating that this film was, "not Delphine Seyrig, nor Donald Duck", that it was, "not cinema", and did not, "require conversation", however it, "invites participation". The title is a phonetically Basque nonsense phrase. The feature film itself is of widescreen dimensions, created without a camera, with paint applied directly to the film's surface in an abstract brush-less technique.

It is difficult to review a film without sound (it's meant to be played silently with no accompaniment), without characters, without intentional representation, or narrative. Largely what you see is what you bring to the film (it's like a Rorschach series). Mostly I saw fantastical images in the flow, ecosystems, vast machines, explorations in impossible worlds. I toyed with the idea that Sistiaga's images were some kind of God-sight, a kind of omniscient en ronde view of life. Sometimes I felt the images were minute or cellular, sometimes colossal. I saw my favourite part as a deep ceiling-canopied beech forest, dappled purple and red root shadows in a kind of phosphorescent nighttime, knotted bases, dark leaf carpet, a burgundy and black womb. Lucifer lights came and played through the interstices, blanching psuedopoded will-o-the-wisps.

Here are my associations in prose form to give you an idea of what may await: floral lava blotch melange, changing tints; Dervish swirling; rift in flow, exploration in polka dot pool; slow forest; kaleidoscopic flower forest, blooming field; flow switches direction, towards, away from, across-ways; bubbling daisy assault; purple amoeba vie; clown fish, harlequin dot dance; filaments, huge spinning towers on diagonals; mirror-flashing oval sentinel comes to scrutinise; pillar storm in white space; inside bee swarm; Shoemaker-Levy Jupiter plunge from head of comet; loving pansy nurture; golden embryo growing; Brownian blizzard; Hell beseech, teeming soul sea; Swedenborg zone; blown glass world; bursting sieve, flame-burst, solar; wide oval dances for violet emperor-rictus, ecstatic lips; old tank in forgotten place, ancient loss, calm struggle; dreaming in ever-warren; Autumn pastel blaze; purple need in phloem tubes; underground hive network; Purple glint mirror; Aurora Orionaris; glimmer sky; black and white fractured glass mountains; murder havoc – white hooded assassins; burnt amethyst network over golden void; inner-space reticulum - marred part, old domain; parenchyma air filled pockets; sand grain red – fuchsia flows; impossible geography; enormous machine face behind network; grape bunch cityscape; resinous amber blaze; black and green murk world; Klee goldfish; flustering rainbow coloured underworld, flashing; alchemist's flask; rainbow frost.

This is for Claire, my favourite hispanophile.

If you didn't have epilepsy before...

[benrossg · 4/10 · 29 October 2019]

...You will after watching this. Yet, I'm unsure if one can exactly "watch" this, let alone call this a "film". The reason for my rating reflects this: As a film, it's nonexistent. Effervescent nothingness. A prolonged seizure put to screen. None of the "paintings" last long enough to be appreciated individually, not that it matters as so many seem to bleed together as they hemorrhage onto the screen. That aside, if you can put up with the eerie lack of any noise or music at all, you can meditate on the barrage of blobs and splotches of colors racing before you, entering an odd trance, perhaps one of self-reflection or contemplation. This is borderline Stockholm Syndrome, to me. It's irrational to expect a non-film to entertain. However...

As an art piece, it's fascinating. I can easily see this playing endlessly on a loop in the background of a tucked-away area in the Milwaukee Art Museum or the Chicago art galleries. If this were an installation piece in a place like that, it would be mesmerizing, if only for a short time. I cannot imagine anyone sitting to watch the full thing without growing uncomfortably bored, especially during certain points like the black-and-white television-static like section between the 26 and 34th minute mark. What makes it even more intriguing is that the film begins with an odd prolonged series of shots of stretched and squished together words which, upon looking closer, are actually the words of the title of the movie. It goes two words at a time, until "izik subua", where suddenly the "film" begins. AN HOUR AND TEN MINUTES LATER, the stream of painterly patterns abruptly ends with the end card of "ARUAREN...", as if it were supposed to say "FIN". This is almost the only bit of "narrative" the film has, waiting in bated suspense to see the final word of the title, which in and of itself is nonsensical Basque. Odd, considering this is a Spanish film, that aired in France. However, it is worth noting that the Basque itself translates as follows: "... also burn as if we were under the age of ..." Certainly, the sights of amorphous technicolor blobs will be burned into your retinas by the end. Perhaps it speaks of the atomic age? ...Maybe I'm overthinking things as usual.

I knew the 70s were weird, but this only serves to cement its bizarre reputation further in my head. Something like this had potential, but the fact it's presented to us as a film and not something like the aforementioned art installation is baffling, as the director himself admits it should not be interpreted as one, but rather that it "invites participation". What I would love to see more is the literal filmstrip itself, stretched out and taped to a giant light board, while a copy of the movie plays on the other wall on a loop. This way, it would retain its relevance and significance as art while avoiding being touted as cinema. The entire "movie" is available on YouTube. I do recommend people watch this, at least a part of it, just to glimpse the truly indescribable nature of this "film", despite all I've said here. It is a piece of art, but it helps to know that going in. I know there are lots of movies such as this, ones that are not meant to be necessarily narrative or structured as an experience that relates information or tells a story. I'm not giving it the score for that reason alone. Really, I just wish it had some music to go with it. When you think about it, Fantasia isn't much different, being a series of animated vignettes set to classical music. If something similar was done here, like in the vein of Allegro non Troppo, there really would be something special here.

This is the kind of thing you discover tumbling down the endless rabbit hole that is the history of cinema. It floats past you as you scour databases such as this, as was the case with me. But rather than feeling like a biblical epiphany, it reads more like a schizophrenic daydream. My mind ends up filling in the gaps made by the silence, whispering strange and disquieting things, mostly along the lines of "Why am I still here?" or "What's taking so long?", and the like. It's more fascinating reading other's reactions to the movie, or even reading along with it. I'm hoping someone finds a Led Zeppelin album that syncs up with this movie the same way Dark Side of The Moon syncs to Wizard of Oz. It'd probably be from something like Boy George or Matmos. Maybe even Daft Punk or GWAR. ...This movie does strange things to my head.

An Interesting Experience.

[shadowjacc · 5/10 · 10 December 2019]

I struggle to rate this film because it is completely abstract in nature. There is no narrative and no real meaning that is imparted to the viewer. I found that just watching it straight was really doing nothing so I put some powernoise in the background and allowed it to become a completely sensory experience. Is this the intended viewing method? No of course not, but I feel it gave me more than just staring at silent colors for 70 minutes. The shapes colors themselves do have interesting moments, but it's not enough to keep me entertained for it's entire run-time. Adding the music allowed for my full captivation. This is by no means a bad film, I don't mean to imply that in it's virgin state it is a waste of time, however I feel that it is up to the viewer to get the most out of it and engage with it as they see fit. I'd recommend it to fans of unique cinema or those just looking for an interesting experience.