University of Virginia Library

Kinetic Art Returns

Program One of the KINETIC
ART, SERIES II, an exciting batch
of new films by international
directors, will be shown in Wilson
Hall tonight, Friday, and Saturday
evenings at 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.

The three-part series, which
premiered at the Philharmonic Hall,
Lincoln Center, March 25, is a
collection of the new cinematic
crop from many countries, bringing
recent works of leading filmmakers
and first films from festival-winning
newcomers.

According to one New York
Times reviewer, "the programs are a
good length (about two hours) and
are sufficiently varied not to tax
the endurance of any interested
audience."

This week's program features
Cocteau's legendary "Egypte, O
Egypte," a "gorgeously deliberate
contemplation of the Nile and its
ruins" (New York Times) and
Svankmajer's "The Wall," winner of
the Lion of St. Mark Prize, Venice
Film Festival.

The other six films in this
week's show are The Joint, in
which an All American Boy grows
his own "Circusz," an allegory on
the meaning of artistic performance
in impossible conditions; "La
Divina," in which an immaculate
bride to the city of Los Angeles
rises from the dark inferno of
Dante and Dore; "Birthday," a
lyric; and "S.W.B.," a brilliant
take-off on some recent big
commercial films.

Program Two for the series (April
23, 24 in Wilson Hall) will feature
"Vaucherin," called "the most
important short film of the year"
by Peter Cowie in the International
Film Guide of 1970. Also in
Program Two are Jordan Belson's
"Reentry" and Terry Riley's
"Music with Balls," which the New
York Times reviewer termed
"abstract, dense, and lovely."

The "widely admired" Yoji Kurl
is represented by "The Room" and
"Au Fou." "The Room" is "a cruel
investigation of occupying and
reoccupying cubic spaces," while
"Au Fou" observes a "series of
ironic accidental deaths in a world
apparently at the mercy of a
malicious solid geometry."

Of "Marie Pour Memorie" in
Program Three (April 30, May 1 in
Wilson Hall) Michel Delahaye wrote
in Cahiers du Cinema "Marie Pour
Memire is for Garrel, at 19, the
passage from inspiration and talent
to mastery. Haunted, tormented
adolescence is captured as never
before: gestures, fears, silences. The
same obsessions and always the
taste of blood in the mouth, but an
end to the posturing of
self-conscious moods.

"The cinema of Garrel moves by
its succession of ideas. With Garrel
one is tempted to employ the
critic's cliches: 'to invent the
cinema with each shot, to think as a
film maker, I do not search, I find.'

"In sum, the cast of characters
set adrift, are given into time,
wounded by the present, already
incorporated in the cavalcade of
memory. Today Garrel, as prolific
as Godard, turns toward the
future."

Of "Momentum" in Program
Three Roger Greenspun writes, "it
was like some luminous, fluid,
immensely energetic evocation of
Abstract Expressionism." Also in
Program III are "Arthur, Arthur,"
"Historia Natura," and "A rough
sketch for a proposed film dealing
with the powers of ten and the
relative size of things in the
Universe."

The KINETIC ART SERIES II
is being sponsored by The Unicorn,
a literary magazine. Tickets are
available from members of the
Unicorn staff, at the usual places on
the Grounds, and at the door of
Wilson Hall Auditorium at the
times of showing. Series tickets cost
$3.00; single program tickets cost
$1.25.