While I do not watch a lot of experimental movies, I do like to include some in my cinema diet. Such was the case last week when I watched Jonas Mekas' As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty. Made or assembled, really, when Mekas was in his late 70s and released in 2000, it consists of footage he had shot on 8mm and 16mm decades previously. The subject? His life. As I Was Moving Ahead is nearly 5 hours of his home movies, so to speak.
Scenes of daily life in New York City are set against those of his family on vacation. (There's also footage purportedly shot here in Madison but is of another, unknown city.) We see his wife, his daughter, and his cat go about life in their apartment. We also get glimpses of life in the city such as men shoveling snow. Then we're out in the country - Cape Cod, sometimes - and people swim, walk through the woods, etc.
As these images are shown to us, we sometimes get music and, occasionally, it's Mekas himself on accordion. At other times Mekas talks to the viewer about what he is showing us. On the odd occasion we hear diagetic sound, the sound of the streets and its denizens.
Mekas notes at the end that this movie is his memories; it's a record of how recalls his past. And this is indeed an intensely personal work. There are some beautiful passages, and occasional parts with universal appeal. But it's 4 hour and 45 minute running time was challenging, to say the least.
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