H2O

When it comes to water, you'd be inclined to think that what you see is what you get. We've all observed rivers, lakes, ponds and puddles; there's nothing new in the notion of a water surface reflecting and refracting light. Only an avant-garde filmmaker like Ralph Steiner could possibly have envisioned any different, and his 'H2O (1929)' is a bewildering montage of aquatic images, an inane but moderately absorbing examination of Earth's most abundant liquid, and the life-blood of all living organisms. The film starts ordinarily enough, presenting the viewer with rather commonplace shots of flowing rivers and the like, before becoming fascinated by the sprays of light reflected by the water ripples. Gradually, Steiner focuses closer and closer upon these ripples, exploring water's material nature at such close range that the liquid becomes almost unrecognisable, the shifting bands of reflected light seeming to flit across the screen like some bizarre psychedelic animation. The film takes a few too many minutes to get to this point, but, once it does, the effect is rewarding.

Exactly what Steiner is attempting to communicate about the nature of water has quite eluded to me. Those well-versed in experimental cinema can no doubt invent some obscure meaning to match the film's images, but I'm content to evaluate the film based purely on aesthetics, and, certainly, various shots in 'H2O' can only be described as hypnotic. The film, which runs around ten minutes in length, opens with four minutes of mundane water shots before we get our first reassurance that something worthwhile is unfolding. The film, which will definitely not suit all tastes – and, indeed, probably sits on the border of what I find entertaining– deserves to be seen by those interested in the avant-garde movement, particularly from an era where experimentalists and surrealists were only just finding their feet in cinema {Luis Buñuel's 'Un chien andalou (1929)' was released the same year}. Additionally, if you've ever wondered what more was to be discerned from water other than two hydrogen atoms and an oxygen, then perhaps you've found your answer.

To begin with, the title of this one refers to the scientific designation of water. The film, then, is 12 minutes of just that: the element is shown in all its various forms, from the industrialized (pumped for consumption) to the natural (rivers – also tackled in a 1938 Pare Lorentz documentary I watched recently) and the atmospheric (rainfall – the subject of an upcoming effort in the Kino "Avant-Garde" collection, dating from the same year, by Joris Ivens).

There is only so much of interest (and that is primarily visual) you can glean from such material; in the final analysis, its experimental connotations have as much to do with photographic ingenuity (when catching reflections in pools of water) as editorial technique and musical underscoring.

In the book The Immense Journey (1957) by American anthropologist Loren Eiseley (1907-1977) is a wonderful quote--"If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water." Twenty-eight years before Eiseley's book, photographer Ralph Steiner (1899-1986) created a short paean to water, a 12-minute silent film entitled "H20". He, incidentally was a cinematographer for the fine Pare Lorentz documentary, "The Plow That Broke the Plains" (1936).

Steiner's "H2O" film has a very brief introduction with rain the focus; it quickly becomes more abstract. Steiner is obviously fascinated by the remarkable kinetic action of water and how the motion created an endless variety of water reflections. This occupies half of the film. He then follows up with some brief textural aspects of the water, and finally ends with the effects of light on the ever-moving liquid--the shimmering, glowing, sparkling. With pattern merging into pattern, amazing abstractions appear, startling in their beauty. The film is an aquaphile's delight.

As an amateur still photographer, I've taken numerous water abstraction photos. I would love to see what a cinematographer might do with these water features in color. It's easy to envision a kaleidoscopic short which features the patterns created by reflections, the textures and the impact of light. The poem "God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot" from the Leonard Cohen novel Beautiful Losers would aptly describe such an effort and does indeed describe what Steiner did in 1929.

I watched the movie as part of Image Entertainment's box set of Unseen Cinema. There's no way I would have sought it out otherwise. After all, what we have here is film footage of water. How could that possibly be good? Well I congratulate myself for my bloody-mindedness of watching every feature on the disc. The first minute is a bit slow, hardly-interesting figurative shots, a kind of a deliberate prelude, but then we get shot after staggering shot of coruscations, ripple effects, some barely recognisable as water. You keep on thinking that Steiner is going to run out of inspiration and then another brilliant shot appears. The dappling of the water in some shots comes as close to music as film is going to get. Being an admirer of abstract art was especially helpful for me in admiring the film's aesthetic.

Being so far removed from standard narrative film-making I would suggest that this short has limited interest to most, but for anyone interested in the avant-garde or experimental cinema this is 24-carat gold.

How does one rate a film like this? There is hardly a plot, and there are no actors, only water, in many of its forms.

Yet, there is indeed a progress in this film: from water, the familiar liquid, seen in a variety of fashions, in movement, reflecting scenes or objects, transparent and opaque, to quite abstract (often close-up) visions of water that emphasize form and shadow.

It is as if this simple liquid, that we all encounter on a daily basis, is being de-familiarised, and the liquid we need for life is being turned into an aesthetic object. This process, it now occurs to me, embodies something of the wonder of the child before water, grasping at it as it streams from the tap, playing with its surface, observing rippling reflections. There is indeed a childlike wonder in this short film, with an artist's eye for camera-angles and editing - quite a unique combination that is well worth viewing. You may not look at water in quite the same way again.