Bill Morrison and Aleksandra Vrebalov
“Beyond Zero: 1914-18 follows a path through an artillery barrage of repeated rhythms and brief but expansive moments of release to depict war and moral chaos. Scratches, burns and bubbles crawl across the nitrate footage like some living, viral thing, as images emerge from, and are then consumed by, the organic beast of history… if it’s true that a picture is worth a thousand words, then the Kronos Quartet prove that, in the right context, a chord is worth a thousand pictures, whether an atonal assimilation of a world torn apart or a classical Turkish lament that carries the unbearable pain of all humanity in a single note.”
Written to mark the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I, Beyond Zero: 1914-1918 is a collaboration between filmmaker Bill Morrison, composer Aleksandra Vrebalov, and Kronos. The 40-minute work interweaves rare 35mm nitrate footage with archival audio recordings and Vrebalov’s original score. “Unlike official histories, that have often romanticized and glorified the war,” writes Vrebalov, “artists have typically been the keepers of sanity, showing its brutality, destruction, and ugliness.” Watch additional excerpt >
Released by Icarus Films
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