Film

Cannot Exist

1994 · 2m

IMDb

6.4

The hand-painting of this film is interrupted by, and interspersed with, a geometrically structured Mask of Death (one of those frightening human idea-shapes of dying) immediately caught-up in threads of streaming, polarized crystals of Light (elaborately step-printed, with simultaneous frame-to-frame dissolves and printer "pull-backs" creating an effect as if the room in which the film is being viewed was inhaling viscous strands of Life's chemical material). The blurred photo-image of a person appears briefly superimposed on these "streamings": then there is a short visual "exhale" of this "crystallized" light, as the screen appears to re-absorb its imagery and resolve itself into a pale violet scattering of dust, is it? ... a nebulae, perhaps – i. e., some semblance both earthly and cosmic and (as such) as enigmatic as "the face of God." Collaboration with Sam Bush.

• Stan BrakhageDirector

Release date

January 1, 1994

Status

Released

Original language

English

Runtime

2m

• 

  The Town

  1944

• 

  Zorba the Greek

  1964

• 

  In the Heat of the Night

  1967

• 

  The Cardinal

  1963

• Satrapy

  1988

• 

  The World of Apu

  1959

• 

  Aparajito

  1956

• 

  The Music Room

  1958

• 

  Sleuth

  1972

• 

  I Be Done Been Was Is

  1983

• 

  Primary

  1960

• 

  Sikkim

  1971