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DIRECTED BY: Godfrey Reggio, Jon Kane                                                   

FEATURING: Sussan Deyhim, Apollo Garcia Orellana, Tara Starling Khozein, John Flax, Brian Bellot, Mike Tyson

PLOT: The Kindergarten of Eden, a pastoral playground populated by children and watched over by a majestic singing tree, is invaded by a devilish serpent in the form of technology. A technomage captures the attention of twins wearing wicker space helmets, and the quiet paradise is soon overrun with unpleasant imagery and mindless distraction. The children are encouraged to fight for their innocence and escape the fallen world with the help of a kindly mentor.

BACKGROUND:

• Reggio is best known for directing the experimental landmark Koyaanisqatsi and its two sequels. Co-director Jon Kane was editor on Naqoyqatsi, the third in the series, as well as Reggio’s previous feature, Visitors (2013). Once Within a Time marks the 83-year-old director’s first foray into (sort of) narrative cinema.
• The fifth feature collaboration between Reggio and composer Philip Glass.
• The film was shot entirely at a soundstage in Brooklyn. Many of the sets are miniatures built by leading Broadway production designers Scott Pask and Frank McCullough, who found themselves sidelined from their usual stagework during the pandemic.
• Although the movie relies heavily on digital technology, there is no 3D CGI animation. Digital rotoscoping was accomplished by human effects artists frame-by-frame.
• The costumes designed by Machine Dazzle were included the artist’s first museum show at the Museum of Arts and Design in 2022.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: One of the first images in the film–Sussan Deyhim’s mother tree singing to the peaceful residents of her youthful utopia–is among its most memorable, but there’s a tableau that repeats throughout the movie to signal the world’s decline. In the center of this park sits a merry-go-round, and as the garden slips deeper into despair, new icons hover over the spinning wheel, most potently a syringe in which children swim about in an endless swirl.

TWO WEIRD THINGS: Commedia dell’emoji; The Mentor’s lesson in a boxing ring

 WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: In finally choosing to create his own images instead of merely assembling them, Reggio does not disappoint. He takes the same green-screen and compositing technology used to create comic book blockbusters and makes the film that Georges Méliès (who gets a visual shout-out) undoubtedly would have produced, if given the tools. The result is a philosophical tone poem that blends a didactic lament for the world with a heartfelt embrace of handmade craft. It’s a mystifying wonder.

Original trailer for Once Within a Time

COMMENTS: At 52 minutes (which includes a lengthy endcrawl), Once Within a Time is a brisk watch, but one that lingers in the mind long after it ends. The most immediate question is: What on earth is this movie? Fortunately, that proves easy to answer:

It’s a protest. Reggio takes stock of the world, and finds it has its face buried in a screen. A family obliviously scans images of human catastrophes from around the world, enormous phones loom over the landscape like monoliths, and a digital snake-oil salesman proffers mindless entertainment. Animals look on with disapproval; it’s no surprise that one creature begins to wail away at the offending electronics in a direct mirror of the Moon-Watcher’s discovery of weapons in 2001. Reggio sees the seeds of addiction, and his solution is to rise up against the oppressors. When the children emerge from a techno-Trojan horse, they are greeted by a stick figure with the face of Greta Thunberg, the young climate activist whom he clearly admires for her commitment and independent thought. Reggio has no patience for passive responses.

It’s a satire. As worrisome as the malign influence is, Reggio also finds it quite ridiculous. Conflating the forbidden apple with the corporate overlord of the same name, he introduces the Bringer of Evil with the familiar Mac startup chime. Confronted with edgeless sentiments of emojis, Reggio turns them into awkward dancers, giant Oompa-Loompas who are barely equal to the emotions they purport to represent. When wolves are denied a Moon to bay at, they gather around a giant cellphone and howl at Georges Méliès moon. There’s nothing great about the technological revolution that can’t be mocked or brought down to size.

It’s a test of the Kuleshov effect. The movie is populated with remarkably photogenic children, whom we follow through this broken new world. But their feelings can only be understood in connection with the surrounding footage. When they stare directly at us, often with blank-faced attention, we scrutinize their faces for some indication as to their amazement/worry/disgust at the thing we’ve just seen. It’s a fundamental part of film editing, but in this particular universe of green-screen compositing where the kids are nowhere near the thing to which they’re reacting, it’s a notable demonstration of the filmmaker’s ability to put his thumb firmly on the scale.

It’s a peek into the far-ranging mind of Godfrey Reggio. Given that this is the first time Reggio has permitted himself to create his own metaphors for the unbalanced cosmos, each scene gives us precious insight into the man and his message, his humors and his angers. Perhaps the most curious and potentially enlightening insight comes from his casting of The Mentor, the beatific figure who speaks directly to the children and incites them to rail against the encroaching doom. Mike Tyson is, of course, best known as a pugilist, one who, in addition to issuing savage beatings in the ring, once perpetrated extralegal violence against an opponent by biting off a chunk of his ear, and who was convicted of and served time for rape. However, Reggio sees another side to Tyson, and quite successfully conveys that vision. (Members of Reggio’s crew have admitted bafflement over Reggio’s fixation on the boxer.) Tyson appeares to us in one of Machine Dazzle’s fantastic costumes, a majestic cloak that makes him look like a space monarch. With his signature face tattoo glittering, a welcoming smile beaming, and speech represented by the free-jazz honks of a saxophone, you actually start to see the figure of peace and joy that the director has in his mind’s eye, to the point where you’re willing to ignore the blatant symbols of Tyson’s most notorious night in the ring that adorn the set. It’s a strange culmination to what has already been a strange journey.

It’s theater. Once Within a Time begins with the parting of curtains and a fidgety audience awaiting the start of the show. Along the way, it delivers set pieces like acts in a revue, with vaudeville performers, singers and dancers, acrobats and clowns. And at the conclusion, despite offering a thought-provoking question to sum up the adventure —“Which age is this: the sunset or the dawn?”—Reggio nevertheless offers up a title card reading, “The End,” making clear that this has been a presentation for an audience to enjoy. (He also has one more joke to deliver, a post-credits epigraph from the noted philosopher Homer J. Simpson.) Alarmed Reggio may be, but he never forgets to put on a show.

All of this is true, and in the end, what Once Within a Time is finally is a surprising enchantment with both despair and hope at its center. It makes societal dangers into visual wonders, and it holds the optimism of a child up as the greatest power in the universe. If Reggio’s Qatsi trilogy was all about the universe out of balance, for the first time he offers a means for leveling the scales.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…this strange new experiment — less scripted than staged — revisits early cinema with the same doom-laden playfulness that [Reggio’s] previous work used to push the medium forward… Where [Koyaanisqatsi‘s] sight of people streaming through Grand Central Station at light-speed provoked wonder and worries of terminal velocity in equal measure, the far weirder image of a man-sized Apple of Knowledge wowing Adam and Eve with a glimpse at the screen in his chest doesn’t leave any room for interpretation. Reggio wants to dazzle you, but he’s deathly afraid of being misunderstood…”–David Ehrlich, IndieWire (contemporaneous)

“…a fable for modern times, a fairy tale spun with a fever dream of wires, circuit boards, demagogues, apples, and apes sporting virtual reality headsets. It’s surreal, beautiful, frightening, funny, confusing and, above all, affecting. Once Within a Time‘s carnival of pop surrealist imagery will haunt you long after its 51-minute concludes.”–J. Simpson, Pop Matters (contemporaneous)

OFFICIAL SITE:

Homepage – Once Within a Time – Once Within a Time‘s distributor, Oscilloscope Films, hosts a page with basic info, a link to the downloadable press kit with 10 high definition stills, and the 35-minute making-of mini-documentary

IMDB LINK: Once Within a Time (2022)

OTHER LINKS OF INTEREST:

¡Colores! – Godfrey Reggio: Once Within a Time – A cultural affairs program from New Mexico public television profiles the director.

The Credits – Kane and executive producer Steven Soderbergh discuss the film’s creation and messages

Talkhouse – Three Great Things: Godfrey Reggio – The director identifies the three grand concepts that comprise his secret to life

American Cinematographer – Art Leads the Way: Filming Once Within A Time – Reggio, Kane, and cinematographer Trish Govoni describe the process and technical details of shooting the film

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: ONCE WITHIN A TIME (2023) – Gregory J. Smalley’s original Apocrypha Candidate review.

HOME VIDEO INFO: Once Within a Time is available on DVD or Blu-ray (buy) from Oscilloscope.  Either version comes with a commentary track from the filmmaker, a copy of the trailer, and the “making of” featurette (which is also currently available online). Naturally, the film is also available for streaming purchase or rental (buy or rent). As of this writing it is also free to stream on Hoopla for those with a library card that includes that service.

Where to watch Once Within a Time