Review of Taris

Taris (1931)
Water Wrackets
8 February 2006
I recently viewed a rather good student film that explored "liquid memories," by setting the imagination in the mild ocean. It reminded me that it was time to re-view the films that first got the sleeve of my imagination caught in the machinery of cinema, those films that explore architectural water.

Of them, I believe this to be the first. (If I am wrong, please let me know.)

This is ostensibly a film about a man in his water kingdom. He gives a "tour," as if the kingdom were defined by how you move and breath, and there is a rather clumsy bit at the end where he walks into the waterworld in his "ordinary" suit.

But where it shines is in how it depicts that world, glimmering, swirling. Sometimes, even though you know what you are looking at, you cannot get your own bearings. You cannot see exactly where you are. this business of immersion and world-definition is important -- I think -- to how we understand all worlds in film.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.
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