Mothlight (Brakhage, 1963)

Experimental film exploring the physical medium of film.

I will not even try to claim that I even halfway understand the film, if "understanding" is anything that was intended by Brakhage. Although there is a small pile of books on Brakhages work staring at me from the unread shelf, I still allow myself to interpret the film in my own limited way.

For me it is an exploration into the world of certain subjects like light, attraction to light and transparency. This might be a premise to end up sticking moths onto transparent films. There are some interesting related thoughts: the attraction of people to the movie and the watching of a lightened screen in a darkened room. The dissimulation of a real world existing inside the pictures projected is destroyed in this film by moths who do have reached their ultimate goal - to become part of the very thing they are attracted to. But it also has the aspect of a collection of pinned insects.

Maybe I could nice little tale about the drawing power of stardom in movies - and how it ultimately kills you once you've made it to the silver screen. But there have been many of these, I guess.

Definitively worth rewatching many times, food for thought.

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