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Eaux d'Artifice is arguably one of the simplest yet most perfectly realised films made by the controversial American avant-garde director Kenneth Anger -- perhaps best known for Scorpio Rising (1963), his rock 'n' roll paean to sex, death, occult ritual and motorcycle fetishism. Like that later film, these days Eaux d'Artifice is normally shown as part of his Magick Lantern Cycle, a collection of the nine extant films that he made between 1947 and 1980.
The film follows the progress of a lady dressed in period costume as she explores the gardens of the Villa d'Este in Tivoli, some thirty kilometres outside the Italian capital of Rome. These extraordinary sixteenth-century water gardens adorned by more than a thousand fountains and water spurts can still be visited and, despite some depressing wear and tear wrought by the passage of time, it takes only a little imagination to ignore the thronging tourists and conjure up instead the spirit of Anger's stunning night-time reverie. Only the scale of the gardens seems less than that represented by the movie, as Anger's crafty casting of a dwarf in the main role served to create an exaggerated sense of their magnitude.
Presenting an astonishingly beautiful play of light on bubbling and cascading water, and choreographed to the "Winter" Concerto of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, Eaux d'Artifice requires no knowledge of Anger's oeuvre in order to make it a joy to watch. Yet a more sophisticated appreciation of its intent is best achieved by considering it in the context of the director's wider preoccupations. Anger's dedicated exploration of certain themes -- ranging from the conceptual to the biographical -- positions him as the consummate artist filmmaker.
The film follows the progress of a lady dressed in period costume as she explores the gardens of the Villa d'Este in Tivoli, some thirty kilometres outside the Italian capital of Rome. These extraordinary sixteenth-century water gardens adorned by more than a thousand fountains and water spurts can still be visited and, despite some depressing wear and tear wrought by the passage of time, it takes only a little imagination to ignore the thronging tourists and conjure up instead the spirit of Anger's stunning night-time reverie. Only the scale of the gardens seems less than that represented by the movie, as Anger's crafty casting of a dwarf in the main role served to create an exaggerated sense of their magnitude.
Presenting an astonishingly beautiful play of light on bubbling and cascading water, and choreographed to the "Winter" Concerto of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, Eaux d'Artifice requires no knowledge of Anger's oeuvre in order to make it a joy to watch. Yet a more sophisticated appreciation of its intent is best achieved by considering it in the context of the director's wider preoccupations. Anger's dedicated exploration of certain themes -- ranging from the conceptual to the biographical -- positions him as the consummate artist filmmaker.