Decasia (2002) Reviews

• The Anti-Koyaanisqatsi

  Baroque2004-03-26

  Close to 70 minutes of footage that is rotting away, accompanied by a discordant symphony. It sounds like slow torture, and to some, it may be. But to me, it was like looking at visions of a lost civilization. Trying to scry the images out of decomposing footage was akin to reconstructing a piece of pottery from shattered fragments. The "decaying" music was a haunting accompaniment to the film, complete with detuned pianos and an orchestra that played out of phase with itself. But the visuals hit me the hardest. This is what happens to film if we neglect it. All those visions of the past are being lost forever to time and the elements. The silver nitrate base of those films decomposes at the same rate as human flesh! To me, the film was both a poetic look at decay, something that happens to everyone and everything, as well as how our cinematic history is vanishing as we speak. It goes without saying that this film is not for everyone, but if you truly want to step outside the boundaries of conventional cinematography, this is it!

  More

• The most authentic science fiction movie ever?

  paulnewman20012004-10-14

  Bill Morrison's 2002 experimental feature just has to be seen to be believed. From thousands of decaying archive prints, he's selected the most baroque examples of negative decay in which the nitrate-based film stock has degraded to the point that its images melt into one another or are partially obscured under whirling vortices of psychedelic disintegration. The finished effect is simply stunning. A boxer unleashes a flurry of blows at the spot where his opponent once stood but which is now obliterated by a seething column of celluloid magma. Nuns escorting a crocodile of schoolchildren are thrown into a near-photo negative contrast, making them look more like daunting sentinels herding their captives. A kissing couple attain a sense of heightened reality in a world rendered in shimmering tones of silver by the process of decay. Phantom faces and objects swim momentarily into lucidity from images now transformed into a kaleidoscope of amoebic distortion and static. In a courtroom scene, the elderly female witness shifts in and out of certainty as her features are pulled and warped like gum into monstrous facades suggestive of liquefying skulls while the judge delivers his verdict from the writhing face of a nightmare. These images insinuate themselves into the imagination like bad dreams recorded directly from the subconscious and imperfectly reassembled via primitive technology. They feel as if they might have been the ancient television broadcasts of some impossibly distant alien culture, plucked out of the cosmos by radio telescope and translated for human eyes. To complete and reinforce the experience, Michael Gordon has contributed an astounding soundtrack, likened elsewhere to the sound of a plane crashing in slow motion and calling to mind the more haunting industrial works of Philip Glass, rescored for an apocalyptic funeral mass. You could turn off the sound and play the film to, say, something delicate by Debussy for a totally different experience but that would only deny you the awesome, hypnotic power of the visuals and music working in harmony. Morrison's selection of material appears to be far from random and he's evidently chosen images of permanence and stability for the ironic effect of watching them transformed by inevitable corruption. This remarkable project works on so many levels – as a slice of cinematic history from the earliest days of the medium; as a study in the nature of decomposition; as a rococo piece of visual and aural entertainment for the chemically enhanced; even, perhaps, as the most authentic science fiction film ever made. If the function of cinema is to transport its audience into another reality via the willing suspension of disbelief, to show them things they've never seen before and to create a compelling emotional state from a synthesis of sounds and visions, Decasia: The State Of Decay must qualify as one of the most accomplished examples of the form produced to date. Guaranteed, you've never seen anything else even close to it.

  More

• All the lonely filmstrips, where do they all belong?

  bradluen2004-08-31

  The screening I saw had a very low walkout rate for an experimental movie, although admittedly the audience were mostly students taking Berkeley's avant-garde film course, so they probably had to be there. Poor kids, you might say, but this'll probably be one of the high points of their semester. It'll take you a few minutes to flesh out the decay metaphor (even film doesn't last forever so what chance do we puny humans have, etc.) but surprisingly a large proportion of the imagery continues to be affecting beyond that point. The game I play when viewing an unannotated found-footage work is to discover what scenes the filmmaker's way of seeing enhances, and why. I could draw up a list of (possibly false) dichotomies - human vs architectural, familiar vs exotic. The one that struck me, though, was documentary vs fiction. Bill Morrison (the same guy who worked on Futurama? Really?) uses excerpts from both categories, but all of the scenes that moved me were unscripted. When I watch a silent fiction film, the image on the screen is evidence that the characters, and thus the stars, are alive. When I watch old documentary footage, the first thought that comes to mind is "These guys must all be dead by now". Perhaps that's why I slightly prefer Gianikian's and Lucchi's all-doco "From the Pole to the Equator", even though that film makes "Decasia" seem as watchable as "Fantasia". But probably a pertinent reason is "From the Pole to the Equator" has a more useful soundtrack. Gordon's "Decasia" symphony sounds like a parody of Glass, which of course is still better than the score to "The Hours". My favourite bit of "Decasia" is when a long take of nuns 'n' schoolgirls is accompanied by a seemingly infinite collection of continuously descending string lines. Interestingly, Gordon reverses this trick at the end, using ascending lines, and it sounds just like the Beatles' "A Day in the Life". I would've been happier if Morrison had set the film to "Sgt. Pepper", as long as I didn't have to see decaying footage of Peter Frampton. Obscure references aside, "Decasia" is better than most avant-garde films because the pictures look nice, the same way a body lying in state looks nice, only better. Morrison is an outstanding undertaker.

  More

• What a feast for the eyes!!!

  jd3prod2004-08-29

  I have seen a few films regarding the decay of old film stocks, but this one really brings out the beauty of such images. The slow moving images presented with this progressive avante-garde soundtrack brought back memories of the old school industrial musical movement of the late 70s and early 80s. But when it continues onwards to the scene of the Geisha girl lost in a soup of decay and stains and the music rose with its intensity I felt as if I was witnessing wonderfully horrific. I could actually feel my heart beginning to race with the onslaught of the images and sounds mixing together, moving faster and becoming more agitated and excited. I recommend anyone looking for the modern "art" in films to give this one a try.

  More

• Intesesting Premise, best watched in fast forward

  sbibb12006-12-11

  Being an avid film restoration film, I was eagerly awaiting the chance to see this film. This film is made up of random bits of film, from various film archives around the world, which has been spliced together at random. The one connecting feature of this film is that all film used is rotting, decaying, faded, bubbling...in other words the film is decomposing. Kudos to the filmmaker for salvaging some of this film and letting the public see what can happen to film if it has not be stored or cared for properly. The footage is totally random, some nature films, newsreels, features...countries featured include the United States, Turkey, Japan, Morocco....scenes of stars like William S. Hart, Larry Semon, Mary Pickford....scenes of dignitaries arriving aboard ships from 1920s newsreels; 1950s educational films.....a really vast array. However the film can be agonizing to sit through, especially because it is in incredibly slow motion, and most of the time we get only a fleeting glimpse as to what is actually in the film frame, most of the time the entire image is distorted. I watched the movie in fast forward, and even then it was too slow. The movie has very haunting music, and this film could easily be shown in October as part of a scary movie festival.

  More