Heaven and Earth Magic

That's essentially what can be said to best describe "Heaven and Earth Magic", magnum opus of the avant-garde animator Harry Smith. An unforgettable collection of visuals, this film is said by many to have an actual storyline, but because of the lack of coherency in presenting this storyline, it is best to go into the film without the expectations of a modern piece of narrative cinema. That basically means allow yourself to be swept into the cascade of images Smith presents, and don't worry about understanding a plot. It's really not one that you would be able to discern within the film without already knowing it ahead of time; so with that said, one should allow themselves to be transported into that other universe Smith wants you to feel and forget all else.

"Heaven and Earth Magic" was one of Harry Smith's rare feature-length films at a little over an hour, and that's understandable when you consider his style(s). I say this in plural because when watching his filmography, one can see the man made use of two different forms of animation: cartoon (hand-painted onto 35mm film) and cutout. The former was his earliest style, while the latter was his later one. Hence, considering this was made in 1962, it is through cutout imagery that Smith tells his strange tale, one about a woman who has a toothache that travels to Heaven instead of the dentist's and experiences a series of surrealistic occurrences. As stated above, this story is not told in any conventional sense to be sure, and it is only through a few recurring objects that you can see this happening.

Smith's previous animation shorts were normally less than five minutes, and consisted of similar visuals to the ones in this film. One can definitely see why this was his only feature film, because despite the 'plot' that explains some of the action, it's really no more than a lot of surreal cutout animation. The weird things that happen are one after the other, with a lot of - as my title states - recurring motifs. A skeleton, an umbrella, birds...the list goes on and on. These things are often accompanied by sound effects that sort of fit in, but certainly don't sync with the animation, further enhancing the experience. It's all very artistic, beautifully crafted, and does a great job at painting an alternate dimension - as the title indicates, it's magical.

I first saw this at a Harry Smith tribute in '93 at the Naropa Institute. I was blown away. This film is avant-guarde. The animation is mind boggling and the use of sound is unforgettable. You will find yourself looking at the world in a very different way after this film. It's very much like Paradjanov in the use of symbols and allegory. Watching Heaven & Earth is like being exposed to a magical universe. A world you've forgotten that you actually already know.

Nothing wrong with surrealistic animations and I can actually enjoy some of them from time to time but this movie was just too much. It didn't made sense in any way and I had no idea what was going on all or what the movie was trying to achieve and say.

There is absolutely no story in this. Just a bunch of random animations wobbling on the screen. And it's all quite abstract as well. Sizes and motions are all out of this world, so most of the time you really have no idea what you are watching. Stuff that happens just make no sense but all the worse; it doesn't even seem to have a point.

What was Harry Smith trying to tell with this movie or what was he trying to achieve with his animations? To me it probably will always remain a mystery, though some people still seem to be able to appreciate his work and especially this movie in particular. Glad some people still get something out of this movie. What's art to some is absolute rubbish to some others I guess.

Perhaps I could had still taken the movie if it was much shorter. An hour is just far too long for an pretentious, artistic, animated movie, in which absolutely happens story- or entertaining-wise. Yes, perhaps some good humor could had still made this movie somewhat more watchable as well but this totally isn't the angle this movie was going for.

The animations themselves also aren't that impressive to look at but I can still see how its style influenced other later film-makers and animators. However that still doesn't make this a good or interesting movie to watch. Not for me at least.

2/10

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I had heard many great things about Harry Smith's Heaven and Earth Magic, but I never saw it. to be correct, I actually did saw a few parts of it, but I never liked it. it has got that kind of style that needs to be appreciated, and because I do not get very much excited by moving paintings, the works of Mister Smith never appealed to me. let's be honest if we can: this is no ordinary movie, but it's no animation film either. it's something in between, something that only exists in it's sole existence. having said that, I hope it's clear I don't like Heaven and Earth Magic. it's too strange for me. there seems to be no story whatsoever, except for a collection of rather sketches than story lines. I love the works of Stan Brakhage, even though they have no storyline neither. but Brakhage's movies are to be seen as random art, Harry Smith's movies however have nothing to do with art. they tell us nothing. but I believe you can give anything a reason of existence, even the films made by Harry Smith (not to be confused with Jack Smith, the godfather of the New York underground experimental gay cinema). Here, you can see many things relate to life and death, hence the strange title. Smith plays with confusion and depth, thereby creating original novelties on the screen. mutilation becomes art, and art becomes reformed, destroying the original being and furthermore changing in another lifestyle. however,if you have never seen a Harry Smith film, these words can't mean anything for you. Harry Smith needs to be viewed many times, his creations and demolition are too strange to understand with a first viewing. I'm a big fan of experimental short films with no sound, but this is silly. the only sound we hear, are coming from animals and things that distract us. Harry Smith uses these sounds to make his collage of life even more absurd. at a certain point, he uses a machine to play tennis with a baby as tennis ball. original, yes, but do we want to see this? no. it's quite boring, playing with life and death in a fictional concept. one thing is sure, of course, once you've seen this movie, you will never forget it.

The thing about Heaven and Earth Magic is the sound design from Harry Smith was more unnerving and queasy than the visuals; the discord among the various cries, wails, barking, the calm of the wind, baby cries and horns and the general industrial cacophony is what makes this so entrancing. Smith reminds us that when you have noise put to visuals it is what makes everything so completely untethered to reality even as these are things that had to be hand crafted and shaped from reality.

You are caught up in what is essentially set pieces about building up and breaking down shapes and people, how some will consume and some will create and some will take away just as quickly. There is no rhyme or reason to anything but there is some sort of dream logic going on, like when the one guy who swallows a helper then gets his eye injected with a needle that makes it bug out.

Some of this - no who are we kidding most of of it - is nonsense and experimentation in shifting around shapes and figures and so on. But I'd be lying if I said I didnt get more into it the longer it went on. I figured this would get tiresome as this pre Terry Gilliam Monty Python approach to cut-out random silliness built and changed over time. What I didn't expect was that I'd want to see what happened to that... watermelon-head guy or if that fish would make a move on that girl.

Drama, man!