Saw a really good film tonight at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art. (just down the street)

It was Michael Snow's Corpus Collosum. It was shot digitally and involved much animation for special effects that were often quite comedic. The majority of the movie was a seemingly endless slow pan across an office setting with all kinds of strange and subtle happenings. One of the funniest, that seemed to allow the office workers thoughts or dreams to come alive was the massive penis of one worker slowly growing and moving towards the woman mounted on the desk across from him with her dress pulled up.

The Q and A with Michael after was almost as interesting as the movie (though much shorter). One of his comments made me want to think further about why I liked this film so much. It was his response to a question about the meaning of the film and he said that was up to us.

The sound track was minimal and sounded like an analog synth stretching a single pitch to its limits. Also, throughout the entire film we could hear the director (mr. Snow) cueing people into scenes, making camera directions etc. (and often see him and the cinematographer in reflecttion in mirrors, windows etc.)

I asked him about that after and he said something about confirming for the viewer that it was just a film and was not reality.

I was quite impressed to hear from some of the animators that were present that there was very little improvisation. I was sure that the nature of the software would inspire ideas on the spot for his "director's palette" but apparently the whole script and diagrams for each animated event turned out almost exactly as planned.

One of my favourite parts was the credits during the middle of the film. They were typed in real time by Darren Werschler-Henry. The film had quite a large cast that included John Oswald who was also in attendance at this screening.

tim