Unconscious London Strata

…the nearest equivalent to the NON-pictorial workings of my mind which these London scenes, before my eyes and camera lens, would afford – each scenic possibility distorted from any easily identifiable picture to some laborious reconstruction of the mind’s eye at the borders of the unconscious. It was two years before I could even begin to edit; and then some visual-song of all of England’s history began to move thru this material… (SB) “Prisms, focus shift and visible grain lend a degree of abstraction to images which slowly become recognizable (and, to the British eye, familiar) buildings and house fronts… Fluid editing and subjective shooting (with the eye kept close to textures and surfaces) stress that the film is a personal documentation of the act of seeing as well as of the sights perceived… The clear invocation of Monet may imply that London is in a sense déjà vu… History, memory and the physical structure of the city can perhaps be seen as layers of the ‘unconscious London strata’ explored, or reflected in the memory-passage of the film.” – A. L. Rees, British Film Institute