The Dead

Although it did get a little tedious towards the end, despite only being a mere 10 minutes in length, this is still a very visually stunning and fascinating film by Stan Brakhage, a man who may be the ultimate experimental filmmaker.

There is no plot to speak of. It is essentially just a collection of bizarre images that Brakhage filmed and fooled around with afterwards, creating a surreal and sometimes jarring experience. It's overall mood and tone is slightly bleaker and drearier than Brakhage's other early works, mainly because of how much darker it was visually. The colors Brakhage uses all throughout this film are just of a very dark tone, there are many grays, blacks, blues, etc.

I have to say, I am usually quite patient with artistic license. I have enjoyed some surrealistic efforts that boggled the mind but were still visually interesting. This one made absolutely no sense to me. First of all, I had to strain my eyes to see anything that looked remotely recognizable. I was trying hard to see where death fit in here. It made me wonder if this was supposed to be the hallucinations of a person who was ready to cross over.