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Decasia (Bill Morrison, USA, 2001)
by Barnaby Welch
Initially commissioned by the Europaischer Musikmonat as a live
event for the Basil Sinfonietta, Decasia is a stunning and powerful
experience that not only forces you to reassess the possibilities
of the cinematic medium, but is a case in point that experimental,
non-narrative cinema can be just as engaging and satisfying as anything
that the mainstream has to offer.
The film consists of about 70 minutes of nitrate archive footage
collected by Morrison that has been naturally damaged and decayed
by the process of time. Set to a powerful score by Michael Gordon
(Bang On A Can), the film is a meditative and hypnotic rumination
on life, death, cinema and history. The film seems to circumvent
meaning and is open to interpretation and the lack of narrative
guidance makes it an invigoratingly active experience for the viewer.
Opening with a shot of a Sufi dancer, whirling in slow motion and
then cutting to oscillating rolls of film in a processing laboratory,
the link between the image and the medium is made clear from the
very beginning. In the second sequence, badly deteriorated shots
of the sea and what seems to be a Japanese woman, dressed in traditional
clothes, fight for prominence over the film’s decay which
resembles Rorschach ink blots that slowly float around the screen.
This merging of the image recorded on film and the deterioration
of the physical medium itself is not only stunning to watch but
is also incredibly moving. It takes a few moments to realise that
not only everybody shown in the film is dead; but also that the
nitrate decay mirrors the process of corporeal decay that affects
us all.
Decasia also shows how reliant we have become on explicit narrative
meaning being presented for us in the form of story. Although there
is a structure and movements to the film (which are explained in
the interview with Morrison below), Decasia does not rely on devices
such as captions or intertitles to segregate the different parts
of the film. It instead relies on a deeper, more subconscious level
of understanding that may only become explicit after several viewings
and may be different for each viewer.
The decay of the film not only prompts metaphorical analysis but,
on a more superficial level, is an art-form of its own – the
visual results of the organic process of decay is like animation
– albeit without human interaction. Whether the film stock
has been damaged by water (in the early sequences mentioned above)
or by the slower but no less certain process of natural ageing,
the results are quite beautiful. Morrison has carefully chosen footage
that not only attempts to elucidate our relationship to death and
dying (or overcoming the constant subconscious fear of death), but
has also picked pieces of film that make the most of the interaction
between the films decay and its original content. In one shot, a
boxer inhabits the left hand side of the frame whilst the right
hand side is decayed beyond recognition. He punches the damaged
area of the frame, seemingly desperate to stave off the creeping
process of disintegration. In another sequence, a woman is arguing
with a Judge, gesticulating passionately. The film warps, stretching
her features in all directions and increasing her sense of menace.
Although these scenes are interesting in themselves, they are not
indicative of the film as a whole. Decasia is more of a cumulative
experience – one that slowly and imperceptibly grows into
something far greater and more profound than its individual parts.
A mammoth work of complexity and power, Decasia is not only a logical
extension of Morrison’s earlier work but is also a profound
and thought-provoking experience that was one of the highlights
of this years Edinburgh International Film Festival.
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