While watching this film, I felt an agonizing awareness of time as I kept checking the clock to track how much longer the film would run. My initial impressions of the film were that it was...terrible. I attribute this to my lack of understanding of the film's content. We learned in class that Anger based much of his work off of the occult writings of Aleister Crowley, of which I and most people are unfamiliar. In the beginning I tried to figure out which ritualistic tradition the film refers to; but it soon became apparant that the film did not refer to any specific ritual at all. I found the content to be ridiculous and boring, except for some parts at the end with the one lady whose chest was half uncovered and the following superimpositions of fire. That's the thing though, I could never tell what exactly was going on and who was being summoned. Sometimes it's okay to not know completely what is going on, but you need to be left with something to go by, like in Maya Deren's films (which I really enjoyed). Sometimes films that are initially laborious to watch can plant thoughts and ideas inside your head that ferment over time. I gave this film that benefit but unfortunately, whatever was planted in my head by this film was scortch-sanitized from it immediately.
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