Timoleon Wilkins
2021
Petrichor
Timoleon Wilkins
On one level, the film is the narrative of a mid-western thunderstorm…with images of gathering cumulonimbus clouds, downpours, windswept landscapes…and a sense of progression. But there is also a willful subversion of this order, with a play of color fields, film grain, and flashes from a wandering mind’s eye. Finally, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, we arrive at a locale that might exist only in dreams.
Petrichor
Lake of the Spirits
Timoleon Wilkins
The scene is a visit to Pyramid Lake, western Nevada, early summer, with a good friend. Somewhat less concerned with myths of the old west than its predecessor, BLUE SUN WESTERN, this film paints a portrait of a mystic and beautiful landscape - itself a living character of the pre-historic west. In this locale the sun's light is both emitted from, and reflected by blue-black depths: coral-like rock formations provide the backdrop for a shadow-play of vibrations extending beyond the lake's ancient basin. Outside of time, these ripples echo through neon boulevards of present day, an 1800s-era cemetery, and back again - always in the formidable presence of the pyramid. On the soundtrack, a ghostly chorus rises and gives way to a ballad for a cowboy bandit - an extension of shared romantic hope. "The most successful metaphoric envisionment of the desert that I've seen in many years." - Stan Brakhage
Lake of the Spirits
The Crossing
Timoleon Wilkins
The film begins with a brief flash of molten-red grain followed by a long scene of darkest night-blue sea ripples. Hexagonal refractions and spectral rays puncture alluded-to landscapes - rivers, skies, prairies, trees, mountains. Graphic (yet spatially free-floating) imagery slices intently wrought rhythms of light and dark color fields, producing afterimages. The film concludes with bright, almost-discernible window shapes, hinting at an opening to a different realm.
The Crossing
Quartet (In-Camera)
Timoleon Wilkins
Four 100-foot rolls spontaneously edited in-camera. 1-"Desert Skies": A road trip between Green River, Utah; Ely, Nevada and Gallup, NM. 2-"Rose Porphyry": A macro-descent into the shadowy labyrinth of roses. 3-"Monks Memoriam": A gray spring day following the untimely death of a friend's beloved pet. 4-"Coda": A multi-layered bon-voyage to Kodak's finest emulsion.
Quartet (In-Camera)