Spirals

This abstract short film by Oskar Fischinger silent in black and white and is meant to be played without music. It's certainly not the labour of love that some of the Fischinger's later works are, but I liked it a lot. You have the basically travelling down these tunnels made of spirals, there's an odd sci-fi feel to it, like you're moving towards some sort of bizarre revelation. You're not always travelling down tunnels, at one point you are being subjected to strange rays and emanations. Kubrick could have had some of this stuff towards the end of 2001 if he'd have made a silent version in 1926.For me there are really two periods for Fischinger, very personal and experimental films he made in the 1920s, Wax Experiments and Sprititual constructions being the high points, followed by the crowd pleasing and much more jaunty colour movies (generally juxtaposed with music), many of which financed by the Hollywood studios. It's hard for me to choose which period fascinates me the most.