Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One

I AM IN SHOCK!!!

After my first viewing, I was in shock! After some reflection, I really didn't feel one viewing was enough to write a review, so I watched the Special Features segment on William Greaves (At one hour, almost as long as the feature itself!) and then I watched the entire movie again...Here is the comment I was going to use after just my first viewing: "Is it an extremely original concept in film-making? Yes, undoubtedly! Is it enjoyable and watchable? For me, at least, the answer to that question is 'Not so much!'

8*******" Boy, just how stupid am I, anyway? (Rhetorical question, of course!) Here I am, at 76.2 years of age, and it wasn't until yesterday that I became aware of the name William Greaves! I really can't remember the last time I could look anyone and everyone in the eye and say the words, with soulful and unabashed conviction..."GENIUS!... Pure, Unadulterated GENIUS!"

Sitting here at my computer, focusing on authoring this review, the SYMBIO-experience has inspired me to an extent unparalleled by any other film in recent years. My job now: Articulate this in a way that, in turn, will inspire you to Queue, watch and perhaps produce a review of your own. Here, perhaps the most challenging aspect of review-writing is to avoid anything resembling a spoiler. Don't read the NF Blurbs. One definitely contains a spoiler, which could easily deprive you of the joy of "Getting It" all on your own! The 2 things which stand out most in retrospect? First, the sheer simplicity of the applied concept itself is truly inspirational, in and of itself. Second, that it took a quarter of a century, after the fact, for Mr. Greaves to get a decent screening and begin to get some of the recognition he so sorely deserved for this cinematic milestone.

Couldn't help but notice that "SYMBIO" was shot in August 1968, just 3 months after the release of Stanley Kubrick's 2001. What do the 2 films have in common? Well, thematically, not much, really. It's hard to imagine a person like Greaves not having seen it, so...Who knows? We could always ask him! REVISED RATING... 10**********

ENJOY! / DISFRUTELA!

In 1968 when, "SYMBIOPSYCHOTAXIPLASM: Take One", was released, it came from out of nowhere, and struck like a psychedelic thunder bolt. Afro-American actor and film maker, William Greaves, aimed to forever alter the 'news-reel' style of documentary film-making, and to this day, there has never been anything quite like it. The movie is a film about 'the making of a film', and intentionally written and directed so as to create as much controversy and contradiction as possible. Set in New York's Central Park, the action and scant dialog concern a couple who fight and bicker about homosexuality and abortion. The woman wants out of the relationship, and the man wants an explanation. Near the end of this interaction, a drunk homeless man interrupts the proceedings and offers his commentary, and personal back-story. Then, after the principle footage has been shot, the film crew add their own views of the film-maker and what they feel is his inept handling of the movie. And during the entire film, multiple cameras are employed to record the action within the scene, and extraneous commentary by cast, crew, and onlookers. I would certainly recommend this film to anyone who has an interest in Avant Garde film makers such as Andy Warhol, John Cassavetes, or Jim Jarmusch. William Greaves attempts to show that a thing cannot be truly observed and understood because the viewing itself would alter the reality. "SYMBIOPSYCHOTAXIPLASM: Take One" can be seen as a cinematic representation or application of The Uncertainty Principle. This is only one possible explanation, and Greave's true intent is certainly open for speculation. Above all else, this film seeks to confound, confront. and stimulate, and without a doubt, succeeds admirably.

It's simple.

It's a documentary (or is it?) about people trying to film a scene, and the people filming the scene are themselves being filmed, and Miles Davis is playing consistently in the background, and there's interludes where people talk behind the scenes about the nature of the film they're both in and making - including whether they're actually acting or not, and whether anyone will see the film, and how things may or may not be edited - and all the while, everyone has to deal with various interruptions as well as general existential dread and confusion, and then a very interesting homeless man (or is he?) hijacks the film and it then ends, and then there's an apparent part 2 made almost four decades later.

I might've missed something.

Like I said... simple.

This was recommended by a reader, and I'm glad to have seen it. But that's only because I'm interested in anything that contributes to the vocabulary of folding or self-reference. But I would not recommend this to you as a film experience. It is a clever idea: film acting students in Central Park doing a screen test. The lines they play with are capriciously malleable. Meanwhile a camera documents the events behind the first camera. There's sometimes a third camera as well, and from time to time that camera focuses on a discussion of the crew. They're discussing — with amazing vacuity — the advanced implications of the film.

In other words it is explicitly self-referential in the simplest of ways. There are many more clever folds in the film world, and certainly from that period, so this isn't rare or even novel. It would be something to recommend if all this relatively sophomoric enlightenment had been turned to something that had blood and muscle of some kind.

But it hasn't. Its one tool in a collection of several that have to be applied to the real building material of life. It lacks any of that and isn't a particularly sharp tool at that.

Perhaps Part 2 1/2 will be worth it.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

I gave this film a three only because it kept me interested enough in watching all of it. The film was an interesting experiment but brilliant? That's a stretch, at best, but for its time a big maybe, perhaps. It's a film about nothing but it is a film that is also filled with egomaniacs, misogynists, wannabes and hangers-on. I saw more talent from the candid crowd shots than I did the cast and crew combined of what the third party film crew was filming when the lens was actually focused or the view finder wasn't fixed at a treetop because someone was holding the running camera under their arm. It was a depressing journey on a continuous loop going nowhere, a carousel of blathering idiotic dialog and smug pseudo-intellectualism. It is an interesting time capsule but it's cringe inducing for any woman to watch. The interesting aspect is how many women were involved in the film crew (as well as the actresses) and not one of them flinched at the blatant and nasty undercurrent of misogyny that flowed throughout which was about the only constant this film accidentally chartered a course on and that was the subsequent impact this film left in its cinematic impact and wake.