Songs 23-36

US 1967. D: Stan Brakhage. 16mm, colour, silent. Announced at 110 min, 76 min. New (2008) LUX print 77 min. Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 29 March 2008. Great new 16mm print of the films originally shot on 8mm. Song 23 Part I: this is a strong commentary on war, inspired by the Vietnam war, visions of death, carnage, disaster, found footage. Paolo Cherchi Usai is following on the track of Song 23 Part I in his Passio. Song 23 Part II: Peter Kubelka's Vienna (with Kubelka on the flute), other sections include very dark images, bordering on the invisible, and then rewarded by some delicious Brakhage abstract image food (the fascinating mordants). Song 24: naked boy at the flute. Song 25: the birth of the image. Song 26: the road at night, the devastation of war, the silence of the nature. - The Songs cycle is a very uneven sketchbook linking the sublime with the monotonous.