Sogobi

The conclusion of James Benning's trilogy: Sogobi (the Shoshone word for earth) delivers 35 shots from the Californian wilderness. In its original conception, the film should have remained completely free of traces of civilization, but in the end it became a visual essay on the slow advance of the human species. The pure nature studies with their sparse arrangements of shapes and colors, from barren trees in the fog to wild desert flowers, are increasingly intermingled with signs (and sounds) of economic invasion. The trilogy comes full circle in the document of the violation of nature, including remarkable details: from the appearance of the forces of law and order in the middle of each film to a recurring poster of “Out-door Systems” (here in the middle of the vast steppe) to the completion of the water cycle, which finally returns to the reservoir at the beginning of El Valley Centro. Where there was a mighty rush, it is now: empty. (Christoph Huber)

Introduction by James Benning in English

Photo: Austrian Film Museum