Lovesong 3

Directed by Stan Brakhage

Three qualities of hand- painted imagery inter-weave throughout this film: (1) a mash of thick lines delineating colored shapes, (2) thin black lines, like drawings, which most suggest recognizable body-parts, and (3) globs of pure color at inter-play with each other. An irregularity of rhythm (produced by repetition of frames 2, 3 and 4 times) creates the sense of a driving force propelling the inter-weave of these essentially abstract displays: three-fourths of the way through the rhythmic intensity falters, 'breaks down' as it were, almost becomes a mockery of its earlier sexual regularity. Instead of variety midst regular beat, the forms suggest some loose variance. Two formal factors seem to 'save the day,' as it were: (1) an increase of beseeming textures, and (2) interruptive white flashes; and these create a meaningful (rhythmically and tonally coherent) ending.