This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Oct. 4, 2011 - The works by St. Louis-born filmmaker Amy Granat currently on display at White Flag Projects are a must for anyone who's even remotely interested in the field.
Granat has made a significant place for herself among experimental filmmakers, yet her works remain accessible even to those unschooled in film history or theory.
Some of Granat's works conspicuously employ the technical language of film (montage, mise-en-scene, diegesis), but her narratives remain elusive.
Often the films are overlaid with structural elements like color bars, or filmic flaws such as light flares, scratches and discoloration. In other works, Granat draws directly onto the film, resulting in abstract, flashing projections.
Granat works with old-fashioned 16mm black & white or color film, and though the films have been transferred to DVD for exhibition, they retain the feel of the grained-up celluloid.
A true treat in this show is "El Matador (X5)" (2010), five projectors illuminating hapless-looking loops of 16mm film, their endlessly repeating images in a state of pure poetic distress.
Ivy Cooper is the Beacon visual arts reviewer and a professor of art at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.