Scenes from Under Childhood Section #1 (1969) User Reviews

beautiful (but unfortunately tedious) exploration of childhood

[framptonhollis · 6/10 · 31 December 2016]

This is among the more discussed and respected films on the "By Brakhage: An Anthology Volume II" release by Criterion, and I honestly cannot see why. It does offer some very interesting and, at times, quite beautiful filmmaking techniques, and the ending was kind of cute and funny, but other than that there isn't much of interest here. At times, I was certainly admiring Brakhage's overwhelmingly beautiful and intense style, while at others the film was just kind of bored and was making my eyes hurt. Don't get me wrong, it certainly has its moments of classic Brakhage beauty, but this is among the least compelling of his films that I have yet to see.

I would also like to add one other note: I really wish that less imagery of fully naked children was put into some of Brakhage's films. I understand that they are so young that they just happen to walk around the house that way and that this is no child porno, for Brakhage wasn't a twisted pervert, but it makes me kind of uncomfortable at times. I don't know, it just feels weird.

Too long for its own good

[Horst_In_Translation · 2/10 · 11 May 2016]

"Scenes from Under Childhood Section #1" is, as the title already states, the first from several films from this series. It runs for slightly under 25 minutes and was written and directed by American (short) filmmaker Stan Brakhage. The film is from 1967, so it will have its 50th anniversary next year and it is one of Brakhage's more known works. He was still fairly young when he made this one. The quantity of good scenes in here is just too little, even for a film that stays easily under 30 minutes. I do not understand at all the need for further films from this series. I found it a boring watch and I find it fairly baffling how this has a rating over 6 on IMDb. The lack of sound hurts it further. I definitely do not recommend the watch.