Scene 32

Perhaps the most intriguing element of Scene 32 is not the striking imagery, nor the contrast between HD digital and hand-processed 16mm film of the same terrain, but the fact that it has a screenwriting credit. The salt fields of Kaatch become alien landscapes on the screen. There are moments of micro and macro-scale, and no small measure of blurring between them. The sound is a constant low rustle of wind, what might be water trickling, what could be radio. Crystals and plains and planes unfold and roll before us. There is salt on the film itself.

Shambhavi Kaul is credited as director, Josh Gibson as director of photography. Visually impressive, technically proficient, Scene 32 impresses the eyes. Curvature and corners, runnels and gullies, the elements of salt, water, air, time, assemble again and again to produce wildly different views. The distinctiveness of the media is telling even on a smaller screen. Rachel Price's is the odd credit, though it is her notes that appear in the programme for the New York Film Festival, and the balance and switches between the crisp HD and literally grainy film requires a real sense of rhythm and pace. Whatever the balance behind it, as a collaborative effort Scene 32 is visually compelling, texturally intriguing, and technically impressive.