FILM

X

1976    16mm              18f/sec.           9 min  b&w / silent

"The insinuation of camera movements and the familiarity of the same forms recurring in black and then luminous white shapes, makes X an intriguing visual play on positive/negative space. Scale, depth and angle of view are indecipherable. Is it the object or the cameras which moves across the frame? This Rubic's cube for seeing simultaneously demonstrates the illusionism of cinematic space and the camera's ability to isolate and transform. Grenier's use of silence in X is perfectly à propos to its concerns. -Raphael Bendahan, Vanguard, Summer 1985.

Made with a grant from the Canada Council: filmed with the help of Ann Knutson.

“In X, a black line can be perceived as delineation or as a shape in itself. It can also be a slit through which one can feel the background; or it sometimes becomes undifferentiated from one of the areas it delineates when, because of light changes, the areas become black as well. A shape which may seem to cross the frame horizontally can just as well suddenly appear to do so vertically or even go backward and forward in the film space. The rectangle of the screen itself metamorphoses into a trapezoid, temporarily stretching the black mass surrounding it.” (Canyon, NYFC, LUX)

Distributed by FMC, CFMDC, LUX & Light Cone.
Availableas 16mm, QTHD, DCP