Eyewash (1959)
A free flow from photography to geometric abstraction hand-painted by Breer. - Harvard Film Archive
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Simply Perfect
At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.
Director Robert Breer was interested in the use of color and designed his frames so that it looked like the colors themselves were moving in this very short, three minute presentation. It's an odd study in fluid color movement, and quite honestly, doesn't look like much more than a budding high school art student might have come up with. Right in the middle of this offbeat presentation, one will catch a baby at rest, a red gloved hand moving about and what looks like scraps of material wandering around quite aimlessly. As one of the offerings on a boxed set of 'American Film Treasures', this Avant Garde film did nothing for me except upset my equilibrium. There's also a second, shorter version that includes some of the same images in a different sequence that I didn't bother with, because three minutes of this was just about enough for me.
This 3 minute short film is from "American Film Treasures/Avant Garde Film: Disc 1"--a compilation of mostly forgotten art films of the 20th century. This DVD set is NOT for the casual viewer and sometimes I wonder why I watched the films--as some of them were VERY artsy and weird! Robert Breer created this completely silent art film. It consists of a rapidly changing series of collages that are, in a way, mesmerizing. However, it is far from the sort of film anyone would normally watch and is definitely one for the artsy crowd. I think it was enjoyable in an odd way but not one I wish to see again. VERY, VERY difficult to adequately describe and a film that completely defies anyone being able to rate.