PIECES OF EIGHT Rating: NNNN
With digital video cheaper and easier to shoot every year, it’s increasingly rare to see independent and experimental films that actually are films, i.e., works shot on celluloid.
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So it’s gratifying to see the Liaison of Independent Filmmakers (L.I.F.T.)celebrating good old film, specifically the 8mm formats, in Pieces Of Eight, a program of shorts produced with Super 8 or regular 8mm footage.
Some of the entries are just plain fun. Robert Kennedy’s 1999 Hi, I’m Steve is an agreeably silly story about a lonely, insecure guy (played by the director) who finds a rather unorthodox way to break out of the dating scene while staying true to his desires. And Allyson Mitchell’s 2006 Melty Kitty finds compelling beauty in time-lapse footage of a cat-shaped candle burning away to nothing.
Home movies are recontextualized to reveal hidden profundities. Dagie Brundert’s 2002 Milchwolken Liebe (Milky Clouds Love) turns a coffee-making ritual into a delicate Proustian reverie, while Clive Holden’s 2004 Nanaimo Station tells a vivid autobiographical story in a little over three minutes.
John Price’s excellent 1996 The View Never Changes turns his family’s footage into a lament for the relationship he was never able to have with his preoccupied father, who, it seems, had a closer bond with the family dog than with his own son.
I could have done without Gail Mentlik and Anne Borden’s 2002 Rub, which sets black-and-white close-ups of a woman masturbating to Dusty Springfield’s Just A Little Lovin’ to no discernible purpose, but at least it’s over in less than a minute and a half.
Screens Friday (April 30) at Cinecycle. For details, see listings.
