FRAGMENTA

cinethoughts:

Day 38: Eaux d’Artifice (USA, 1953) dir. Kenneth Anger

In a desolate garden - a wasteland of fountains where the only movement comes from water- a masked woman in eighteenth century dress walks through the night. She appears for a moment here and there, walks through the frame and then disappears soon after. The camera lingers for some time on water erupting from fountains, flowing from stone faces/stone masks, licking and bubbling and trickling across the frame. The water glistens in the light and moves rhythmically from one place to the next. The classical soundtrack mirrors these rhythms, movements and tempos - the water slows, the glistening light intensifies as droplets are differentiated from a stream flowing through the frame and a few seconds later the music slows. When the water speeds up the orchestra plunges mezzo forte, gustoso - moderately loud with gusto- into the next few bars of music.

The woman continues wandering through the garden. She appears in the corner of the frame, half obscured by some object. She seems small compared to the gushing water and the closeups of stone faces- almost entirely eclipsed by the garden in which she exists.