As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty (2000) User Reviews

More complex than it seems

[sanwolfx · 8/10 · 1 May 2022]

I think it is sort of a misconception to say that this film is about the beauty of life, and nostalgia for the past. Through the narration and the titles, ambiguity is introduced into the mix. Mekas remarks multiple times the fact that this images are to an extent unreal: people are not so innocent as these images show them to be, people do not love each other as much, other people's perceptions of the same events are quite different, and he isn't just filming his children but he is inventing his own childhood through them. "This is a political film", says the movie repeatedly, and yet in the artificial idealized world of the film politics is entirely absent -there's no poverty, no war, no questioning of his bourgeois lifestyle-, and that's precisely the point: to show not how the world is, but how we want it to be, and how that desire can sometimes become a shallow fantasy. We long for paradise, but paradise is lost. We can only get glimpses of it, not in everyday life, but through it, beyond it, inside us.

My complain with the movie is a matter of form. I just don't like the accelerated frame rate, the fast cuts, the repetition, the inflated length, the out of tune music. I sort of enjoyed it for the first hour and a half, but after that it became a blur. It had in me the effect of starting out as a beautiful experience and ending as a nightmarish reality without meaning from which I just wanted to escape; one is dying to know people's names, to hear someone's voice (besides the rather silent Mekas), and to stay in one place for a while. But then again, that feeling is also part of Mekas' scheme. Beauty comforts us by what it evokes, but hurts us by how unreachable it actually is.

A wonderfilm film

[davidbornoff · 9/10 · 16 September 2003]

Much like Prousts "A la recherche du temps predue" Mekas's, "brief glimpses of beauty" is a refleciton on the years of his life past as seen through the eyes of a man who is percieving his own death. Mekas beautifully edits together the scraps of film that fell to his cutting room floor while he was working on projects he "percieved" as important, not realizing that what was truly important were the deatils that he missed, that he left out in favor of the shot in focus, the shot in composition. He strings together these family films of his children, his wife, his friends, New York during a lightning storm, all while narrating the film from what seems to be "His Death Bed." This film is by far one of the more touching, more emotional films I have ever seen. It is an homage to life as much as it is a recognition that beauty lies in the places we least expect it and as we walk we may occasionally catch brief glimpses of it, if we are lucky enough to have our eyes that wide open.

With words of Jonas Mekas

[eminkl · 9/10 · 9 October 2019]

As I Was Moving Ahead is a record of people's subtle feelings, emotions, everyday joys as recorded in the voices, faces, and small daily activities of people I've met, or lived with, or observed- something I've been recording for years. In contrast to the spectacular, entertaining, sensational, dramatic activities that dominate a great deal of contemporary filmmaking. All this now has to do with my understanding and conviction of what acts really affect the positive changes in man, society, humanity.I am interested in recording the subtle, almost invisible actions, experiences, feelings as opposed to the harsh, harsh, loud, violent activities and political actions of our time and, in particular, the political systems of our time.

• by Jonas Mekas

Not filmmaking, but filming

[Media Boy · 10/10 · 19 December 2001]

No plot, no story, no tension, no conflict, no irony, no dialog, often out of focus, jittery and nearly 5 hours long. All this and it is one of the greatest documentaries I have ever seen. A stunningly positive and beautiful film that is just about the happiness and joy of family, New York City, country getaways and filming. This is such a compelling work, it did not even seem that long. This is the work of a man at peace with his own happiness. We should all be so lucky.

One of those life changing movies

[tarqeq · 10/10 · 14 June 2002]

At 288 minutes, this nearly 5 hour epic is a challenge. But its rewards are well worth the effort. Jonas Mekas has managed to produce a film that forces its viewer to truly understand the beauty and majesty that is life.

Highly recommended, you will be a better person for seeing it.

just beautiful...

[nenanosalj · 10/10 · 22 October 2018]

Beautiful,universal,poetic... Watching it you realise that all you are seeing in this film is in your life to,in life of your friends,people you know..The captured moments of life are precious and beautiful

Interesting idea but execution isn't great.

[yuuki-23947 · 7/10 · 23 November 2019]

The concept of the movie works, the image are sometimes mesmerizing and the comments interesting and funny. When the right combination of music and shots come together it is very nice.

That said it could have been shorter, some parts are quite repetitive, there's like 5 "ecstasy of summer in NYC", several shots of winters that are very similar, etc. And while the shaky, unfocused shots have their charm, they can become tedious. Jonas Mekas does tell you at some point he's not a film maker, but that's a sometimes a bit too apparent in the work itself.

That said it's really good material if you want to zone out, you can watch this with fleeting attention and not miss much of the experience.

Nothing is too insignificant

[batesman · 6/10 · 21 October 2001]

Mekas seemingly attempts to re/de construct his life, splicing together apparently random snippets of home movies he shot over the past 30-odd years. Birthdays, Travels, Picknicks in Central Park, his daughters first steps, a parade in New York City, jumbled and bunched together, occasionally introduced or accompanied by short bits of rumination in written or spoken form. Mekas comments his own life (at least the parts he decided to show us), talks of friends and family and things past. And of his Faible for all things unimportant, which is the core of this work of life. In the end it's an hypnotic, melancholic piece of epic proportions, an Ode to the small wonders of life, those "glimpses of beauty".

A Masterpiece of Nothing?

[pablolivianos · 4/10 · 30 October 2022]

I do not normally write reviews, but after watching this film, I had the urge to do it. I am astonished by the praise that this movie receives. A four hours and a half movie about nothing but disconnected images of the life of the filmmaker. On paper, the concept of the project is not that unappealing to me, but its lazy and carefree approach makes it almost unbearable to watch. Mekas himself addresses the fact that there is no order in the movie, that he just organized the tapes and images randomly, without any sequence and with no intention to give it a plot or even meaning. His voice narration also feels lazy. Mekas seems to improvise and share his thoughts arbitrarily, trying to sound poetic. His honesty can be heartwarming sometimes, but there are many other times in which he just sounds childish or poetically pretentious because of this lack of preparation. This, in addition to the cheap field recordings and the home made piano and accordion tracks, only drag the film and make me feel that I am watching an absolute amateur experiment.

I understand that the film is about life and that its random nature and sequences of disconnected images are meant to represent how memories work; that Mekas wants to trigger the viewers into reflecting on their own life and memories. But I don't think that in order to achieve this purpose one can purely rely on chance and improvisation. Its loose structure and casual attitude ruin it for me.

As an exercise in style and aesthetics, the film has its charm. I like how some images melt into others and the dreamlike quality they have. There were memories and passages of experiences I could even relate to. But most of the time, I was feeling that these images were so far from me and my life I could not be invested in anything that I was watching. These were the personal images of somebody else's life, someone I had no relationship with at all. I guess some people are able to feel the movie, and feel invested in the personal memories that Mekas shares, but I could not.

Last thing I want to say, is that I do not think that "nothingness" is a negative concept when it comes to cinema. There are plenty of movies where "nothingness" plays an important role that deserve their praise and that, in my opinion, should be regarded as better than Mekas' film. Some examples are Koyaanisqatsi, The Colour of Pomegranates, El ángel exterminador (The Exterminating Angel), Stranger Than Paradise, A torinói ló (The Turin Horse), or Un homme qui dort (The Man Who Sleeps). (I just want to clarify that in these films the idea of "nothingness", lack of meaning or lack of plot play an essential role, not that they are about nothing).

"As I Was Moving..." looks and feels like a cheap and random experiment, different and interesting in theory, but overwhelming and lazy throughout its extreme length. I assume its idiosyncratic style has helped establishing this as an ultimate cult film, and I can see that. But its shiftless approach and lack of a purpose make it impossible for me to enjoy.

Wonderful idea, but..

[zeke-sf-graz · 25 February 2024]

When i stumbled upon this film i thought that it is a wonderful idea and i was really excited to watch it. I understand that a certain rawness can be part of an artwork, but if you make a film and you want the recipient to stay with you for over 4 hours, i think it s also important to make it somewhat watchable. Sadly the shaky camera work and the way it is edited does not work for me. The fast cuts, the low frame rate and the changes in tempo make it very hard to get in to the mood of the moment. He seems to have a had a very nice life and i would have loved to participate in it for a bit longer, but i had to drop out after 30 minutes or so.