by Timothy Rutt

Altadena-based filmmaker Laura Kraning will screen her film, “Devil’s Gate,” as part of an international program of experimental film and video work, presented by MIA at the Armory.

DEVIL’S GATE explores the metaphysical undercurrents of a Southern California landscape scarred by fire. The film lyrically depicts the physical and mythological terrain of Devil’s Gate Dam, located at the nexus of Pasadena’s historical relationship with technology and the occult, and intertwining with its central figure, Jack Parsons, who some believe to have opened a dark portal in this place. The film merges an observational portrait of a landscape transformed by fire, ash and water with a fragmentary textual narrative, providing a view into man’s obsession with controlling and transcending the forces of nature and spirit. It can be seen as unearthing a subconscious of the landscape, as the echoes of the past reverberate in the present and infect our perception and experience of place. (2011, 20 min, HD)

“Using Parson’s notes as an enticing Ariadne’s thread, Laura Kraning returns to Devil’s Gate. From the inextricable union between the exuberance of the environment and the equally massive anthropic intervention, she seeks to grasp the spirit of the place. Earth, water, air and fire are the major actors in an expanse in which the time allotted to man seems prescribed. Geometric figures drawn by the highways, stains on the concrete and the noise of the river in the background create a symphony in which one can easily get lost. Filmed in sharp black and white to the rhythm of Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2, Devil’s Gate emerges as a sample of esoteric archeology.” – Carlo Chatrian, Visions du Réel