El Valley Centro

A sound-image portrait of the Great Valley Centre, which lies in the heart of California, is home to huge agricultural operations and oil companies such as insurance companies and supplies a quarter of the USA with food. The prelude to James Benning's Californian trilogy, three visually precisely composed films 90 minutes long, each consisting of 35 static shots of 150 seconds (as well as another two-and-a-half-minute epilogue, which lists the places filmed and their owners and here looks like a political inscription). The drilling opening view of the roaring whirlpool in a water reservoir establishes one of the secret narratives (the path of water as part of industrialisation). At the same time, its intensity marks an extreme point in the span of this astonishing film: from the calm formal suspense of a predetermined combine harvester movement across the picture frame to the majestically absurd view of a huge cargo ship in a narrow canal. (Christoph Huber)

Introduction by James Benning in English

Photo: Austrian Film Museum