Film Categories: Landscape

Set in the once-utopia of Brasilia, “Vacancy” looks out at a world where personality is no longer possible.

This hand-painted, elaborately step-printed film begins with what appears to be torn fragments of thick parchment erupting upward, out of which emerges a series of landscapes, gardens, exteriors of mansions, castles and the like, then (as yellow predominates ever vegetable greens, sherwood greens and deep floral reds, blood reds) interior corridors and room, as if lit by chandeliers and candelabras – all of which eventually bursts into flames, explosions, which somewhat “echo” visually the beginning of film. (SB)

Visionary film. Experimental landscape animation: Moving time-lapse, telephoto cropping, and laborious re-registration create a surreal portrait of Western Canada. The “vision point” occurs when object and subject fuse, dissolving the distinction between the view and the viewer.

On one level the film simply records the process of bricklaying and thus it conjoins both sides of Winkler’s life – his artisanal work as a bricklayer and his artistic pursuit as a filmmaker. On another level, however, the film is a highly abstract work that transforms the structure of a brick wall into a virtual canvas.

A travelogue as catharsis, “i was a strong man until i left home” blends footage from several trips across North America, by plane, train and car. Informed by principles of Imagist Poetry, Kerr turns his camera on familiar imagery of the American travel experience, yet renders the quotidian as abstract, the continuity of perception as fragments. Employing a method he refers to as ‘Digital Sketching,’ “i was a strong man until i left home” possesses the intimacy of a flip through an artist’s sketchbook.