Water and Power

Though the title of Pat O'Neill's ciné-poem evokes Los Angeles and southern California - ostensibly its subject - it might more fittingly be called 'Movements of the Sun' or 'Ghosts in the Machine'. For while this visually striking, technologically remarkable movie acknowledges water as the life force that enables LA to prosper in what would otherwise be a virtual desert, most of O'Neill's time-lapse camerawork, multi-layered superimpositions and dynamic optical effects are concerned with changes in light, whether they be shadows shifting over baking sands or concrete canyons, or the Bacon-esque contortions of wraithlike figures in surreal cloud-walled rooms. Whatever, rather like Koyaanisqatsi with even less narrative but far more imaginative sense, this immaculately edited, kaleidoscopic collage of densely textured images and sounds paints a persuasive picture of LA and its environs as a feverishly dreamlike state of mind.