Passing On

Directed by Mike Hoolboom

Passing On, a lyrical, typically confessional effort that encapsulates what's preceded it. Hoolboom's dance with death — a motif acknowledged in the medieval woodcut segues between segments — resonates in double-exposed shots of anonymous people simply crossing a square, some of them "real," others shown as faint, literal "ghosts" coexisting with those still in the temporal present. In voiceover Hoolboom talks about the "conspiracy of chromosomes" that make up the human being, but the phrase is ironic; for him, nothing is more real, or human, or felt, than what that conspiracy has created.