"To The Beat" by the Scratch Film Junkies' is perhaps described with two words: poetic chaos. The fluidity of the visuals in sync to the, what I call, "junkyard" beat, evoke a sense of playfulness that intrigues me the most about cinema (However, as far as narrative storytelling is concerned, I'm certainly not much of a fan of Jean Luc Godard. Funny that). For whatever the alloted time of the short was, the filmmakers were hypnotists; utilizing the cinematic form as a way to encouraging me to understand the world as one of infinite possibility. If that doesn't sound coherent, that means I must still be under their spell.
I have never done acid, but, if I did, I imagine that I would see the world similar to what the Junkies had created-- especially if I was in my 7th grade Geometry class or something. The gorgeous arrangement of the various geometric shapes caught my eye, especially the blue figures pulsating to the rhythm of the beat near the film's intro. The way the film actually told stories with the imagery intrigued me, as the idea may seem counterproductive to the film's intentions. These stories were told thematically, as seen in the sequence where a family is steadily revealed before they are seen together in their entirety. What does it all mean? If you know, you probably did drugs once.
In sum, I retract "poetic chaos" as the two words that describe the film. In their place: drugs and playful. They don't that ring to it, but it best encapsulates what I think the film was attempting to accomplish. That is, to cleverly shake up how we perceive film and, in turn, our reality.
