Regen

This is a short documentary from the city-symphony genre of film in the early era of film. Unlike most city symphonies, Rain has more of a narrative structure as it shows Amsterdam and it's inhabitants immediately before, during, and after the rainfall. The gentle melodic strumming of guitar accompanies the various images and provides for an added tranquil experience. The film is shot using often obscure angles and close ups of images out of their normal range of view. As it was made during the silent era, there are no words to taint the beauty/ experience and the images are allowed to speak for themselves- while each viewer is allowed to connect and relate their own experience with the anticipation of rain. The film is short and sweet and perhaps one of the most naturally compelling visions of early or even later cinema. If you have the rare opportunity to view this piece of art, I highly suggest it.

I watched Regen yesterday, for the first time. I had read a lot about it and was expecting a masterpiece. Something was not there - something was missing - or something was too much. I saw it for the second time. The images were fantastic - but something was impeding me to feel the masterpiece.

I thought that I was too tired - Regen was coming after two hours of watching other short movies, by Epstein, Eisenstein, Weinberg ... So I was definitely tired.

I took a break and went to the kitchen to eat something, then I came back. I saw it once more. I had an idea - I cut the sound - and I saw Regen again - and now I felt the masterpiece! It is a masterpiece. Only in its simplicity it has a grandeur, a greatness - and the music (which is fine) is not at the same level of greatness - of simplicity and greatness.

I saw it then several times - it is like a spell, it is binding you.

More stuff from Kino's first "Avant-Garde" collection, this was my introduction to the work of celebrated Dutch documentarian Ivens and two more of his films would follow in quick succession. Unfortunately, it would seem that "artists" dabbling in film during the 1920s were hung up on the element of water (in all its forms and sources) since this is the sixth such short I have watched over the last few days, following in the footsteps of Man Ray, Dimitri Kirsanoff, Ralph Steiner, Herman G. Weinberg and Pare Lorentz! As had previously been the case, this is one of those experimental "cine-poems" that were the order of the day in artistic circles at the time they were made but which are more often read about – in fact, this is also included in "Wonders In The Dark's All-Time Top 3000 movies" list I am currently perusing – than actually seen and which nowadays offer precious little instructional or entertainment value.

Rain is the essence of earth's survival. Dutch documentary filmmaker Joris Ivens looked at rain not for its life's essence, but for its aesthetic qualities when it's photographed on the landscape. Two-years in the making, December 1929's "Rain," or "Regen" in Dutch, creatively captures images rain creates everywhere it falls. Ivens and colleague Mannus Franken not only produced a scientific polemic on what causes water to fall from the sky, but unfolds the beauty of rain as it lands on fields, trees, city streets and bodies of water. The visual effects have been interpreted as moving paintings. Instead of illustrating one moment in time like artists do on canvasses, the images filmed by Ivens show a sequence in time. His editing between clips creates a fluidity that static painting, sculpture and still photography have shown to be impossible to duplicate.

Loosely belonging to the cinematic 'city symphonies,' Ivens departs from the genre by avoiding humans in relation to man-made machines. He focuses instead on the environmental relationship of rain to nature and society. The documentarian, whose later fame was attributed to his series on the Vietnam War, has been praised by the avant-garde and the experimental film community by his unique perspective on rain. Much of his shots consists on the movement of water, through falling droplets of rain on puddles, ponds and solid objects. His unusual camera angles capture an element of rain normally not appreciated by people scampering to shelter to escape from being wet.

I just recently found out about Joris Ivens and is awe-inspired by the amount of pieces he made.

This piece is a study about RAIN in the city. It is a beautiful montage of images,reflections,closeups,and people in the city.

His work reminds me of Georgia O'Keefe's, work as an artist. Her work was based on bringing hidden details out into the open, I feel much the same way about Ivens. The slowness of the film gives one time to think about the images, and I like that. Unlike most films today, in and out as quickly as possible.

A must see by any image loving artist.