Review of Decasia

Decasia (2002)
5/10
Intesesting Premise, best watched in fast forward
11 December 2006
Being an avid film restoration film, I was eagerly awaiting the chance to see this film. This film is made up of random bits of film, from various film archives around the world, which has been spliced together at random. The one connecting feature of this film is that all film used is rotting, decaying, faded, bubbling...in other words the film is decomposing. Kudos to the filmmaker for salvaging some of this film and letting the public see what can happen to film if it has not be stored or cared for properly. The footage is totally random, some nature films, newsreels, features...countries featured include the United States, Turkey, Japan, Morocco....scenes of stars like William S. Hart, Larry Semon, Mary Pickford....scenes of dignitaries arriving aboard ships from 1920s newsreels; 1950s educational films.....a really vast array.

However the film can be agonizing to sit through, especially because it is in incredibly slow motion, and most of the time we get only a fleeting glimpse as to what is actually in the film frame, most of the time the entire image is distorted. I watched the movie in fast forward, and even then it was too slow. The movie has very haunting music, and this film could easily be shown in October as part of a scary movie festival.
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