As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty

I do not normally write reviews, but after watching this film, I had the urge to do it. I am astonished by the praise that this movie receives. A four hours and a half movie about nothing but disconnected images of the life of the filmmaker. On paper, the concept of the project is not that unappealing to me, but its lazy and carefree approach makes it almost unbearable to watch. Mekas himself addresses the fact that there is no order in the movie, that he just organized the tapes and images randomly, without any sequence and with no intention to give it a plot or even meaning. His voice narration also feels lazy. Mekas seems to improvise and share his thoughts arbitrarily, trying to sound poetic. His honesty can be heartwarming sometimes, but there are many other times in which he just sounds childish or poetically pretentious because of this lack of preparation. This, in addition to the cheap field recordings and the home made piano and accordion tracks, only drag the film and make me feel that I am watching an absolute amateur experiment.

I understand that the film is about life and that its random nature and sequences of disconnected images are meant to represent how memories work; that Mekas wants to trigger the viewers into reflecting on their own life and memories. But I don't think that in order to achieve this purpose one can purely rely on chance and improvisation. Its loose structure and casual attitude ruin it for me.

As an exercise in style and aesthetics, the film has its charm. I like how some images melt into others and the dreamlike quality they have. There were memories and passages of experiences I could even relate to. But most of the time, I was feeling that these images were so far from me and my life I could not be invested in anything that I was watching. These were the personal images of somebody else's life, someone I had no relationship with at all. I guess some people are able to feel the movie, and feel invested in the personal memories that Mekas shares, but I could not.

Last thing I want to say, is that I do not think that "nothingness" is a negative concept when it comes to cinema. There are plenty of movies where "nothingness" plays an important role that deserve their praise and that, in my opinion, should be regarded as better than Mekas' film. Some examples are Koyaanisqatsi, The Colour of Pomegranates, El ángel exterminador (The Exterminating Angel), Stranger Than Paradise, A torinói ló (The Turin Horse), or Un homme qui dort (The Man Who Sleeps). (I just want to clarify that in these films the idea of "nothingness", lack of meaning or lack of plot play an essential role, not that they are about nothing).

"As I Was Moving..." looks and feels like a cheap and random experiment, different and interesting in theory, but overwhelming and lazy throughout its extreme length. I assume its idiosyncratic style has helped establishing this as an ultimate cult film, and I can see that. But its shiftless approach and lack of a purpose make it impossible for me to enjoy.

No plot, no story, no tension, no conflict, no irony, no dialog, often out of focus, jittery and nearly 5 hours long. All this and it is one of the greatest documentaries I have ever seen. A stunningly positive and beautiful film that is just about the happiness and joy of family, New York City, country getaways and filming. This is such a compelling work, it did not even seem that long. This is the work of a man at peace with his own happiness. We should all be so lucky.

Much like Prousts "A la recherche du temps predue" Mekas's, "brief glimpses of beauty" is a refleciton on the years of his life past as seen through the eyes of a man who is percieving his own death. Mekas beautifully edits together the scraps of film that fell to his cutting room floor while he was working on projects he "percieved" as important, not realizing that what was truly important were the deatils that he missed, that he left out in favor of the shot in focus, the shot in composition. He strings together these family films of his children, his wife, his friends, New York during a lightning storm, all while narrating the film from what seems to be "His Death Bed." This film is by far one of the more touching, more emotional films I have ever seen. It is an homage to life as much as it is a recognition that beauty lies in the places we least expect it and as we walk we may occasionally catch brief glimpses of it, if we are lucky enough to have our eyes that wide open.

Beautiful,universal,poetic... Watching it you realise that all you are seeing in this film is in your life to,in life of your friends,people you know..The captured moments of life are precious and beautiful

I'm personaly someone who can't stand "experimental" art. I don't think that being incomprehensible or 10 hours long makes a movie good. Looking at Mekas, it might seem like he's one of those pretentious "experimental" filmmakers who thinks that just filming anything for nearly 5 hours will fool smug film-buffs. But thankfully he isn't anything like that.

Even though I'm an inpatient and strict movie watcher, I can't say that the 5 hours of this film feel long. I admittedly skipped some parts but none of it feels unnecessary or boring. The big provocation of Mekas (in out time) is - tellingly - that he does not only portrait family life as happy and funny but he is casually showing some utopia of normality and family almost opposed to modern day politicized pathological mental fights against windmills and sick nihilist post-modern meta-jokes.

Most of the film consists of angelic blonde children crawling, stumbling, dancing and jumping through the video in the forest or on the lake. Much of it is Mekas and his wife with their kids and relatives just hanging around, having a good time, playing cards or eating while you can hear folkloristic music or some classics in the background if Mekas isn't explaining things from the off or talking to himself in this sort of memory diary.

There are just some dissonant parts, for instance when he films some hippie-girls and zooms to their butts, followed by some other hysterical hippie-girls protesting for abortions (in a film that mostly depicts happy families with beautiful children).

When I give the film a 7/10, it's actually a positive/high rating for me. This is obviously not perfect and has no intention of being that but it's more beautiful and has more "soul" to it (in a metaphorical way) than most mainstream movies anywhere from the beginning of films to this day.