Popular reviews

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  Review by Kyle Faulkner 4

  Even though pretty to look at, it doesn't seem like much until you delve into the ideas and circumstances behind it. By the late 70s, as a development away from his earlier more representational works and forming a bridge toward the hand-painted films, Brakhage became increasingly interested in the visualization of thought-process itself. This resulted in what he called his Imagnostic Films, including the Roman Numeral Series (none of which I've ever been able to find) followed by the more musically informed Arabic Numeral Series (of which 7 and 12 appear to be the only ones available.) By capturing the bending and warping of light forms without ground or object he attempted to pictorialize not what he saw but rather…

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  Review by Jerry ★★★

  The Brakhage Project

  Glimmering, diaphanous light comprised of shapes and colors, flickering in, then out of frame with patience and purpose. Flickered flares that penetrate the consciousness of the viewer with the intention of bringing about internal contemplation. One of the more minimal, though nonetheless inward gazing and delicate works from Brakhage I’ve come across; Arabic 12 is the twelfth of a twenty-part film series entitled Arabics. To quote the man himself:

  “Each Arabic is formed by the intrinsic grammar of the most inner (perhaps prenatal) structure of thought itself”.

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  Review by isabelle 2

  14th morning with stan b.

  watched in part as inspiration and guidance for my own little day of filming again. stan can always be relied on for such ventures, especially with work as adventurous as this, work born of the most delicate touch. desperate to catch the other parts of this series.

  have a nice day friends

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  Review by louferrigno ★★

  A Pilgrimage, ft. Stan Brakhage (45/63)

  Welp we're back to the visual exercises again, I, I really don't know what I can ADD to the conversation here, Arabic Numeral Series 12 (or, under the much more simple title 12, not to be confused with Nikita Mikhalkov's Russian re-imagining of 12 Angry Men that I'm more than certain would get me better mileage here) continues with the concept of visualizing the actual "thought process" without aid of senses already explored in The Process. only instead of actual scenes manipulated and corrupted with to present an interesting counterpart to Stan's thesis, we have 𐌕𐋅𐌄 ᕓꝊ𐌉𐌃, some smatterings of colored light that only briefly shake up the vacuum of space, star imprints, and…

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  Review by Carl Garcia ★★

  stan you're just shining lights at the camera

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  Review by Evan “Raymond Gun-Virus” Pincus ★★★

  Lovely little exploration of abstraction, but Brakolyte Joe Bernard (who I am being unfairly dismissive of - a very talented filmmaker and one of my favorites) would know to keep this sort of optical play under 10 minutes. Blu-Ray was throwing up weird glitches every so often but tbh... kinda rocked lol

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  Review by Pate Duncan ★★★½

  I remember sitting in the back seat as my parents left my grandparents’ house and drove from Tucker, hitting I-20 towards Carrollton. I squinted at the lights passing by, my nearsightedness and astigmatism—too young to realize I needed glasses—turning each passing car into one light in a series that paraded before me. Before, earlier in the drive, we passed through Atlanta, all warm lights under overpasses and tall illuminating buildings that sparkled to my malformed eyes. A night drive felt like the safest place in the world, cocooned as safe and warm as a drive through Christmas lights.

  But when Christmas came, I squinted my eyes and knotted my eyelashes together, creating a few oval peepholes. This always came with…

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  Review by kuboa ★★★★★ 2

  Carried off to God in a gossamer basket of stars.

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  Review by Giovanni Silveira ★★★★★

  Brakhage's ambivalence about existence can be seen in his early film dramas, in which agonized individuals strain against imagined prisons; it can be seen in his first major work, Anticipation of the Night (1958), a testament to the failure of imaginative seeing, ending in the protagonist's suicide; it can be seen in the cosmic deconstruction that concludes the four-hour The Art of Vision (1965); it can be seen in what is perhaps his greatest achievement, the "Arabics," a series of 19 abstract films that are both glorious examples of light in motion and unsettling documents of seeing so "abnormal" that the viewer feels almost disoriented. And it can be seen in his five final completed works, being shown at the…

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  Review by Auteur ★½

  Mostly a black screen, with random flashes of light, for seventeen minutes. I guess I'm just not in the mood today, to hand out five stars for bullshit. Check back tomorrow.

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  Review by Danny Graziano ★★★★½

  One of the more interesting and layered Arabics, with an almost startling overture overlaid upon some sort of distinctly photographic elements and an inclination to let you engage with the concrete forms of sources of light (though never really showing them to you) than most of the others.

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  Review by Evan “Raymond Gun-Virus” Pincus ★★★½

  Look Stan I know you’re a better editor than this (but what remarkably lovely images!)