Recreation

When people cook, they rarely make a dish of garlic, peeling the cloves and then munching on them. Likewise, while some people may enjoy anchovies on their pizza, lunch is probably not six tins of carefully drained anchovy fillets, with or without capers. Instead, they make wonderful accompaniment to other flavors -- or horrendous, depending on your taste.

Experimental films are the anchovies and garlic of film. They offer the viewer the pure vision of what may become techniques, but in and of themselves are rarely sufficient to stand on their own. The exception is when the technique pioneered by the experiment succeeds and technique grows into a standard. When that happens, the film attains a technical standing that makes it important to see -- which is not quite the same thing.

Other considerations may come into play. When we are young, the fact that something is different is often enough to make it seem better than it is. Sometimes incidental matters can make things seem worse: in trying to find another image for two or three frames here, Robert Breer inserted a couple of pictures of Napoleon, causing one military man to grow choleric at the political tone of the movie.

When Mr. Breer made this movie (shortly after he had made its sequel), he was interested in what would happen if instead of capturing motion and offering them to an audience, it offered them a series of images. It's an important question and the effects can be quite useful. Therefore this is a good experimental film.

Now, if you will excuse me, I an going to have lunch of anchovies and garlic -- on my pizza.