With a spade in one had, a camera in the other Stan Brakhage digs about a garden and comes up with a rare work that has a beginning, middle and end. Gathering lawn and garden scraps he opens in dark background moves into light before closing in black. Some of the images are sharp and clear and offer momentary hope of grasping onto a pattern but Stan seems to be in a hurry and the last quarter dashes any hope as it buries itself in darkness and duller imagery, the early freshness and vitality of the opening, day old stale at the end.
Review of The Garden of Earthly Delights
