Bill Viola - Hatsu Yume (First Dream)

Film Description

Hatsu-Yume was produced in Japan in 1981 while Viola was artist-in-residence at the Sony Corporation. Its title refers to Japanese folklore, wherein things done on the first day of a new year are significant, but Viola extends this concept to that of aboriginal dreamtime and the creation of the world. Hatsu-Yume progresses from darkness to light, stillness to motion, silence to sound, simplicity to complexity, nature to civilization. There are two interwoven themes: Buddhist rituals invoking the souls of dead ancestors and the dark water world of fish. As in a dream, we frequently can’t tell if these wordless streams of image and sound are unfolding in real time, slow-motion or time-lapse. The product of a visionary poet of image and sound, this is a work of extravagant pictorial beauty that is also ominous, majestic, mystical and deeply spiritual.

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