La région centrale

Michael Snow's earlier works were all focused entirely on camera movement. First came "Wavelength", which was purely experimental: a slow zoom inwards over a period of forty-five minutes. The camera movement concept was not as great in that particular work, but it was nonetheless there. "Standard Time", which I have not seen, followed it, a simplistic exploration of panning in a singular setting. "Back and Forth" came next, and that was a longer elaboration on it, which provided more depth to the panning movements.

"La Region Centrale" proceeds all of these films, and explores the movements of all in one three-hour movie. That's not to say at all that this 1971 work is just a basic exploration of up-and-down and side-to-side movements. Every type of movement possible is present in Snow's enormous art film, contained in a single setting of the "Central Region" of the title. Indeed, the different kinds of panning that comprises this film could not be caught by the human eye: the project took several years, as Snow had to hire an engineer to build a robotic arm that could move any which way, which could support a 16mm camera. The viewer is treated to the same landscape for three hours, but the view is changed so much over that period of time that at times it doesn't look the same as before. The biggest variable that accomplishes this is the lighting, which changes. It is sometimes pitch black (which I would prefer Snow had cut out most of) sometimes it is dawn, other times it is normal daylight. The inward zooms emphasize and disguise certain features, and the movements of the robotic arm make unseen visual patterns and motions that are incredibly unique.

Is it worth spending three hours of your time on this? Maybe if you are a committed film buff or film theorist. You have to really be immersed in experimental filmmaking to get a lot out of it. For me, the camera movements were interesting and fascinating, yet it did not grip me or completely keep my interest the entire time. I was interested in the beginning, lost that interest in the middle during the night time scenes (it's hard to see anything in that part of the film), and regained it when the daylight returned. The colossal run-time makes it hard to swallow, but it should not go without any credit - not effective like "Back and Forth", but with a type of effectiveness all its own.

Another highlight, outside the crazy movement, is when the viewer catches various peeks of the shadow of the robotic arm, which is a neat behind-the-scenes glimpse.

It was the early 80s, probably 1981, winter, a Saturday night, La région centrale is being shown at the Anthology space in Soho. I go by myself. Just a few months before, as part of the ReCherChez Studio run by Lee Breuer and Ruth Maleczech in the East Village, a group of us had rented a 16mm print of Wavelength to study it, and that had been most rewarding. I walked to the space. It was snowing and quite chilly. The Anthology was a small theater with a nice screen. There were maybe a couple dozen people there. I didn't recognize anyone. I do recall a group of young Asian men sitting together. I knew that the film had been shot on a specially constructed machine built to let the camera do a 360 degree pan, and Snow was hidden off programming the arm's movement. The soundtrack consisted of the electronic waves of the programming. So I knew what I was to expect.

The film began. A desolate landscape. Quebec. I am sure I had smoked some cannabis on my way to the theater, and I easily settled in to nothing in particular happening for a long time. I just kept watching. I am sure my mind was going off to all kinds of places as I watched, but I never really lost interest watching it go. After a while the pans began to pick up in speed, and eventually the camera began to spin around in a circle as well. The velocity was not very high at first so there was little disorientation, but you could tell there would be. The only human artifact visible was the occasional sight on the ground of the shadow of the arm holding the camera. Otherwise, nothing was visible but a desolate landscape with no people or buildings or anything in a constantly sweeping pan.

After about an hour I began to squirm a bit in my seat. I knew this was a three hour film, and a couple of audience had already walked out. I lasted another fifteen to twenty minutes before I took a break. I used the bathroom, even stepped outside and smoked a cigarette. I recall it was snowing sort of heavily at that time. Then I stepped back inside, where it was warmer and welcome. I went back inside the theater and sat back down. The camera was zooming around much faster now. In short measures the camera started shooting around so swiftly it was impossible to keep up -- then it stopped and went the other direction! Now we were panning back the other way, and it was growing faster again. Then it changed directions again. It was hurtling madly swinging at the end of a tether, and the camera itself was revolving too. The universe was whirling madly before my eyes. It was astonishing and completely disorienting. In that era I was spending a couple of hours a week simply spinning in a circle, with other friends, at the studio, to focus myself physically and mentally. This film was an embodiment of that spinning.

Time completely stopped for this. So did my mind. Suddenly my thoughts weren't racing, suddenly I was deeply focused.

The movement no the screen slowed down until it was back to the slow spin it had begun with. You could feel the film coming to a stop. The room went black then the house lights came up. The group of us there, some folk had certainly left and not come back, probably less than a dozen of us slowly rising to our feet and looking around at each other. Again, I remember mostly Asian guys -- in fact, it was an all male audience. I had sweat dripping down my face. It was winter and snowing but watching La région centrale made me perspire.

No other experience of mechanical images has ever done to me what La région centrale did. I later went to the NYC premiere of his So Is This film and got to hear Michael Snow speak and got to shake his hand. I enjoyed that film, and I've also seen Back and Forth with an audience, and even went to a screening of Wavelength again in 2000 at the Hammer Museum here in Los Angeles. And I can rhapsodize about Wavelength at length, about meanings and all that. But nothing has ever come close to that viewing of La région centrale in Soho in the early 80s as an authentically startling alien experience. Even now, other than describing it, I cannot say why it was so powerful or why that viewing has resonated with me for over 35 years now. Maybe the central region is me?

Note: It's pretty impossible to give an adequate number rating to films like this.

If you're reading this review, you're probably familiar enough with Snow to know what to expect from this film. I had seen a number of his other avant-garde classics, but was told this was his magnum-opus.

Like Snow's other structural works, on paper this may sound tedious: a 3 hour exploration of a landscape. But the movement, while slow at first, becomes breathtaking and even exhilarating. I never got as bored as I had expected, and I didn't have a problem with watching the film, but the sound started to get to me. After 90 minutes, I had to leave and take a break. It's not a deliberately assaultive soundtrack as some other films I've seen, but the repetitive mechanical noises, one of which sounds like a telephone ring, must have been the perfect tone to make me deeply uncomfortable and cause a headache. Part of that could also be that I was listening to these on a tiny, old speaker.

Again its very difficult to say what is this as this is purely experimental. As the name description suggest, its a very long video where a camera is perched on a 360 degrees fulcrum that is speeding up for 24 hours with the final video being sped up to 180 minutes.

Its insane.

Like Wavelength, its literally is a conceptual work (or if your technical structural). More of a work about the possibility of filmmaking. I tend to be hard for films like this but La Region Centrale is interesting. The fulcrum is a designed piece of machinery AND that on its own literally elevates it against other 'films' of this kind. There was an intent to show something never done before.

I personally got acquainted with this work after it was said to be referenced in the film Challengers. Its a stretch but I could see how this became that. Both used this style similarly IN A WAY. I could really explain it but both uses trippy perspective that speeds up, seemingly edited to be continuous. Now, its a stretch but possible.

Not really a film for anyone and I would probably not recommended it but very interesting.

Warning. This film is not for everyone. Don't expect any narrative.

Following "Wavelength", Michael Snow made two films. "Standard Time", an eight minute series of pans and tilts in an apartment living room, and "Back and Forth", a more extended analysis. Both films continue his obsession with exploring the camera's relationships with space and time.

But with "La Region Centrale", Snow manages to create moving images that could not have possibly been observed by the human eye.

To capture these images, Snow designed and built a machine which would allow his camera to move smoothly about several different axes at various speeds. Snow placed this device on a mountain peak in Quebec and then programmed it to provide a series of continuously changing views of the landscape.

Initially the camera does a simple 360° pass (which serves to map out the terrain) but as the film progresses, increasingly stranger views are provided.

8/10