Wavelengths concludes on a ruminative note, with art partaking in time’s inevitable passage, solicitously illuminating the path along the way. Ute Aurand’s Snowing Chestnut Blossoms is reminiscent of her 2006 film The Butterfly in Winter (co-directed with Maria Lang) in its gentle, yet unsparing observations on aging and mortality. This time, Aurand turns the camera on her own parents, lovingly remembered in leisure, celebration and ultimately in absence. Quotidian moments are mirrored by the repetitive camera gestures, which are ironically and perpetually present to all things fugitive and fulfilling.
The idea of the life portrait is at the core of Friedl vom Gröller (Kubelka)’s photographic and film work, with results that are often raw and enigmatic, revealing the manifold layers of fiction that nestle deep within reality. Less a snapshot than a curious vignette, Polterabend, made just prior to vom Gröller (Kubelka)’s wedding, is an atypical portrait of female aging. Six older women of various ages are filmed, first in static tableau (in which nothing is static!) then by a panning camera that individualizes each face in a series of uncontrolled and disarming reciprocal gazes. Passage Briare is a tiny picaresque set in Paris that chronicles the photographer’s coy encounter with a man. Refreshing in its candour and mystifying in its silence, this three-minute gem evinces an irrepressible, flirtatious and giggling excitement. Urban adventure also abounds in Jim Jennings’s rapturous and observant portrait of Greenpoint, Brooklyn – a boogie-woogie collage of hot colours, peeling posters, graffiti art, neon signs, and lackadaisical walkers. From its syncopated rhythms emerges a rousing tribute to a working-class neighbourhood on the verge of gentrification.
FM/TRCS was made in 1974 by American experimental filmmaker Coleen Fitzgibbon, who, in the Seventies, studied with Owen Land, Stan Brakhage and Michael Snow. Recently preserved by Sandra Gibson in conjunction with the artist, FM/TRCS is a molten work of abstraction that uses the subject of a woman undressing to explore the textures of the medium and the dissolution of imagery. Building up and sundering away in a sculpture-like process, the film’s abstract globules and buzzing soundtrack conspire in its entrancing mood.
Rapt, passionate and exhilarating are fitting adjectives to describe Sebastjan Henrickson’s
Flash Camera Movie , a film of joyous affirmation. For one year (2002-2003), Henrickson stole moments from his hectic days to ritualistically record his surroundings with disposable flash cameras, one frame at a time. Allowing for repose and reflection, the resulting imagery developed alongside the seasons, and reveals the paradoxically precious yet banal moments in a life. After working on many a Wavelengths film over the years at Niagara Custom Lab, Henrickson presents us with this lovely offering of his own.
Andréa Picard
Ute Aurand was born in Frankfurt. Her films include Maria and the World (95), In the Garden (co-director, 02), India(05), The Butterfly in Winter (co-director, 06) and Snowing Chestnut Blossoms (09).
Friedl vom Gr öller (Kubelka) was born in London and studied photography at the School of Graphic Arts in Vienna. Her films include Spucken (00), Eingreifen (01), Passage Briare (09) and Polterabend (09).
Jim Jennings has directed more than twenty films, including Close Quarters (04), Silk Ties (06), Public Domain (07) and Greenpoint (09).
Colleen Fitzgibbon attended the Art Institute of Chicago and the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Independent Study Program. Her filmography includes Found Film Flashes (73), FM/TRCS (74), Internal Systems (75), Document (75-76) and X + Y (76-78).
Sebastjan Henrickson is a Toronto-based filmmaker and operator of the Niagara Custom Lab. Flash CameraMovie (09) is his longest film to date.