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Picture of Light takes the approach of a poetical essay documenting the search for a natural wonder; the mysterious Aurora Borealis. It's incorporeal lights and colors pouring from the sky lure a small film team of six to Canada's arctic. After strenuous and complicated technical preparations - among other things, the camera had to be protected against temperatures dropping to minus 40 degrees Celsius - and with 50 pounds of batteries in their luggage, they set out on a 3000-mile train journey through practically uninhabited snowy landscapes to the end of the civilized world - Churchill, Manitoba.
Violent snowstorms force the crew to settle down to a long wait for a clear night in which the Northern Lights may appear. Soon the TV set gains importance as the only link between the inhabitants of Churchill and the outside world. While waiting villagers are interviewed about their life under the Northern Lights: the Croatian hotel owner hardly takes any notice of them; the priest is reminded of the searchlights during World War II; an old man speaks of the lights hypnotizing effect and remembers that people used to tell the weather forecast by them; another enthuses over the beauty of their colors. A member of Space Lab 3 reports live form outer space about his scientific observations of the polar lights, explaining the effects of their enormous sources of energy on the earth's magnetosphere. Mettler himself gives a diary-like voice-over of the events, augmenting the film images with background information, anecdotes and Inuit legends; at the same time questioning the act and responsibility of creating filmic representations of this natural phenomenon.
Over the course of a one-year editing process, the film gradually took shape out of the 18 hours of film material collected during two trips to Churchill. The lights could only be made visible by shooting three frames per minute and later expanding time on the optical printer. Mettler was aware that the images presented to the audience would suggest a reality completely different from the actual experience. Already during the long and cold nights in Churchill, Mettler had questioned the impulse to collect images. Not least for this reason, in Picture of Light he decided for the first time to make use of the voice-over; with which he self-critically tests the powerful potential and authority of the 'invisible' voice.
Picture of Light like his earlier films, deals with the tension between nature and technology, science and mythology. It reflects the desire to track down a wonder and to capture it on film, questioning ways in which experience molded by the media increasingly threaten to replace our individual and authentic experiences.
Original Version: Color, Super 16 mm blow-up and 35 mm.
Further Information:
Excerpts of other Mettler films, articles and photo gallery.
| Catalog Number: MC-695 |
Type: Feature |
Genre: Documentary |
| Copyright: 1994 |
Length: 83 minutes |
Format:
DVD Region: 0 (All) |
| TV System: NTSC |
ISBN: 9780978292911 |
UPC/EAN: 094922719294 |
| Label: Grimthorpe Film Inc. |
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This is a Microcinema Exclusive title.
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Films In Compilation
Picture of Light directed by
Peter
Mettler
Canada,
Video Art / Film Art,
1994,
B&W/Color,
Magnetic Stereo,
01:23:00
PICTURE OF LIGHT (1994) feature documentary, takes a film crew to the Sub Artic to capture the wonder of the Northern Lights. While combining glimpses of the characters who live in this remote environment and the crew’s both comic and absurd attempts to deal with extremes, the film reflects upon the paradoxes involved in trying to capture the natural wonder of the Northern Lights on celluloid. Aurora Borealis…the lights with no bodies, pouring colours from the sky…images provided by nature more special than any special effect. Their majesty and their mystery lead the film to a most unexpected and haunting finale which considers the future of our relationship to technology and nature, in an increasingly artificial or “virtual” world. As well as winning
“Best Film, Best Cinematography, & Best Writing” at the Hot Docs Festival in Toronto, PICTURE OF LIGHT went on to win “La Sarraz Prize” at the Locarno International Film Festival, in Switzerland and the “Grand Prize (Images & Documents)” at Figueira da Foz International Festival: and the “Award for Excellence” at the Yamagata International Documentary Festival. John Powers of Vogue Magazine said: “ An extraordinary piece if filmmakinf. In an era when only one movie in a hundred has a single moment of visionary power, Peter Mettler’s PICTURE OF LIGHT is bursting with them…this is a film that takes you places you have never been.”
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2007-07-17 All Movie Guide
By Sandra Brennan
This beautifully filmed documentary allows viewers to experience the ethereal beauty of the aurora borealis as it is seen in the Canadian Arctic Circle in the middle of winter. Much of the documentary chronicles the process the filmmakers went through to capture the phenomenon on film. Viewers are also taught many of the 170 Inuit words used to describe snow and ice. |
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Preludes: Selected Works of Peter Mettler
MC-696, 1997
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Scissere
A first-person foray into the disorienting realm between reason and sensation, Peter Mettler’s SCISSERE is an incorrigibly inventive first feature film. It deploys a seemingly inexhaustible repertoire of optical effects, in rendering the... more >
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Top of His Head, The
MC-697, 1989
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THE TOP OF HIS HEAD is the story of Gus Victor, a satellite dish salesman whose ordered world is turned upsidedown by a radical and alluring performance artist. A cryptic note left by Lucy leads Gus on a quest which draws him out of the tyranny of... more >
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