Monday, September 16, 2013

Premonition (1995)

WHO: Dominic Angerame made this short film.

WHAT: The completion of the new Eastern span of the Bay Bridge finally finishes the major roadway reconstruction of damage incurred during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, nearly a quarter-century after the event. With an empty span sitting there awaiting demolition, my mind turns back to Angerame's Premonition, which documented another quake-damaged structure, the Embarcadero Freeway, before its destruction. Eerie images of empty lanes of highway accompanied by an industrial soundscape makes for an almost post-apocalyptic feeling to this ten minute film made on the same stretch of pavement that has been used in Frisco films starting with The Lineup and continuing with the likes of Bullitt, The Killer Elite and Time After Time.

WHERE/WHEN: Screens tonight only on a program starting at 7:00 at the Emerald Tablet, a North Beach venue I've never attended (or, frankly, heard of) before.

WHY: This is the second of two nights of screenings of Angerame's films. I regret finding out about last week's screening too late to share with readers, or to make time to attend myself. But tonight's includes more films I've seen and can recommend. In addition to Premonition there's Deconstruction Sight, Angerame's 1990 predecessor in the "City Symphony" series, and 1997's follow-up In The Course Of Human Events, which documents the tearing down of the Embarcadero Freeway. I haven't seen the first or fifth pieces in the series, Continuum or Line of Fire, but I understand they make for a coherent cycle when shown together. And though I also haven't seen the 2013 video revision being shown tonight, his 2010 film The Soul of Things fits with the others in the series, and is a cinematographic marvel worth making Angerame an honorary modern-day member of Dziga Vertov's troupe of "Kino-Eye" photographers.

HOW: Premonition screens in 16mm along with four other 16mm shorts and two video works.

No comments:

Post a Comment