Decasia (2003)

Rot and Roll

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Buy Decasia on DVD.

Filmmaker Bill Morrison discovered a few decomposing strips of film, came up with the idea for Decasia -- a twisted version of Fantasia -- and commissioned composer Michael Gordon to come up with a score. He then edited 67 minutes of damaged, eroding film to the astonishing music and came up with this final version, newly released on DVD.

Decasia moves with little rhyme or reason, but encompasses a haunting vision. The many figures we see on the rotting film stock, emerging from various blobs and blemishes, are probably dead in real life and now their images are dying. One woman slowly materializes in the middle of a frame against a window, as if someone had quite literally filmed a ghost.

Morrison shapes the film by returning to certain images, notably the spinning dancer who starts the proceedings, and footage of a film lab with dozens of reels of film unwinding through some kind of chemical wash.

Decasia really works because of Gordon's discordant score, an eerily off-key, throbbing strain of music that sounds as if it were a musical death rattle rising from some long-forgotten tomb. It earns another intellectual layer when we consider that these images are now permanently preserved in this digital format, half decayed for all-time.

DVD Details: Plexifilm's handsome DVD includes liner notes and a radio interview with both Morrison and Gordon.

Directed by: Bill Morrison
MPAA Rating: NR
Running Time: 67 minutes
Date: November 20, 2004