Short film
Amusement Park
1979 · 6 min
A hypnotic, ghostly drift through fairground lights and crowds, where time smears into streaks and the familiar becomes strange.
- Directed by
- John Porter
- Overview
- Document of various attractions in the historic Canadian National Exhibition, which takes place every year in Toronto, filmed entirely at night, at one frame per second with one-second exposures. Two rolls of film recorded in two consecutive years were used, the first of which consists of close-ups of each attraction, edited in-camera. The second roll is a single long wide-angle shot of the entire “avenue” of attractions, seen from the top of the historic observation tower, which has since been torn down. This scene was filmed continuously over an eight-hour period that began before nightfall, with exposure times increasing as daylight decreased and even after nightfall, ultimately transforming the night scene into a blurry mass created by two-minute exposures per frame.
- How it feels
- Eerie, melancholic and whimsical. Slow-burning and demanding.
- About
- Memory, isolation, aging, art
- Content
- No violence, gore, sexual content or swearing.
- Note
- Written by AI, so it can be wrong. Full breakdown
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