Decasia (2003)

3 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

Rot and Roll

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Decasia moves with little rhyme or reason, but encompasses a haunting vision. The many figures we see on the rotting film stock, emerging from various blobs and blemishes, are probably dead in real life and now their images are dying. One woman slowly materializes in the middle of a frame against a window, as if someone had quite literally filmed a ghost.

Morrison shapes the film by returning to certain images, notably the spinning dancer who starts the proceedings, and footage of a film lab with dozens of reels of film unwinding through some kind of chemical wash.

Decasia really works because of Gordon's discordant score, an eerily off-key, throbbing strain of music that sounds as if it were a musical death rattle rising from some long-forgotten tomb. It earns another intellectual layer when we consider that these images are now permanently preserved in this digital format, half decayed for all-time.

DVD Details: Plexifilm's handsome DVD includes liner notes and a radio interview with both Morrison and Gordon.