Film Diary: John Price

The gestures in John Price’s films — a hazy body in the throes of a ragged dance, a child nestled in a blanket on a beach rock, or a woman in a brown trench coat and high heals tweaking out — are not for us. They have no message, no promise, and no delivery. They are the impressions of a man watching his life closely, intuitively following each moment with a flickering shutter held close to his body. Alone in the darkroom with cheap expired reels and industry tail ends, Price mixes chance with chemistry to work out the colours, tones, tints, and grain. The images may fall off altogether, but he doesn’t care. The intimacy of the alchemical process will still remain and he will remember it. The films presented in “Film Diary” touch central themes in Price’s archive: The City, The Family and The Sea. After Eden (2000), West Coast Reduction (2000) and Eve (2006) are part urban ethnography and part excavation: the journey of a traveler in search of faith amidst a landscape of concrete and lost souls. Passages (2003) traces a wintertime journey to Turkey. Quiet observations of old Constantinople and of Greek and Roman ruins strewn across the Mediterranean and Aegean coasts query the fleeting impermanence of civilization. Selections from his Sea Series #1- 10 (2008-2011) map Price’s children locating their footing along the shores, spits, and bays of the Great Lakes chain.

John Price is a Toronto-based Canadian independent filmmaker who has been making experimental documentaries, dance, and diary films since 1986. He has also created film projections for opera and dance, and is active as a cinematographer, working with such directors as Bruce Macdonald, Peter Lynch, Annette Mangaard, and Mike Hoolboom, among others. www.filmdiary.org