as i was moving ahead occasionally i saw brief glimpses of beauty
synopsis
Jonas Mekas, As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty, 2000, still from the film
As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty
Directed by Jonas Mekas
United States, 2000
Documentary
Duration: 4 h 48m
The film diaries of Jonas Mekas, 1970-1999, was shot on jittery, mellow 16mm color-reversal stock. Footage of daily life, fragments of happiness and beauty, trips to France, Italy, Spain, Austria. Seasons of the year as they pass through New York. A celebration of life, nature, friendships, feelings.
“My film diaries 1970-1999. It covers my marriage, children are born, you see them growing up. Footage of daily life, fragments of happiness and beauty, trips to France, Italy, Spain, Austria. Seasons of the year as they pass through New York. Friends, home life, nature. Nothing extraordinary, nothing special, things that we all experience as we go through our lives. There are many inter-titles that reflect my thoughts of the period. The soundtrack consists of music and sounds recorded mostly during the same period from which the images came. The piano improvisations are by Auguste Varkalis. Sometimes I talk into my tape recorder, as I edit these images, now, from a distance of time. The film is also my love poem to New York, its summers, its winters, streets, parks. It’s the ultimate Dogma ‘95 movie, before the birth of Dogma.”
Jonas Mekas
“Mekas tells the story off-screen, with the reedy voice of a man approaching 80, who takes quiet amusement in telling viewers every so often that nothing really happens in this film… That is the honest truth, and yet not one of the 288 minutes is boring. The reason may be that Mekas has expunged all traces of intent or purpose from the images. The only guiding rule is coincidence, which the radically skeptical Mekas sees as the only gateway to true reality. Only utterly ungovernable coincidence paves the way for the ecstasy that makes one aware of the beauty in an otherwise normal life.”
Mark Siemens, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung