Landfall

“Landfall” was shot in Prince Edward Island, near the family home on the Northumberland Strait. The original footage, shot in 1974, was a kind of interactive, camera “dance” with the environment. Poetry became important when the footage was later superimposed onto its own mirror-image, to help direct the viewer away from the luring yet limited world of image-identification. “I Thought There Were Limits,” by Quebec poet D.G. Jones, w as used to encourage the viewer to reject Newtonian notions of space and time, and to conceptualize the film’s interplay between absence, desire, and presence. Eventually, the limitation of text as spoken signifier is exposed through dynamic visual techniques reminiscent of concrete poetry. (RH) “While the camera swings and sweeps around an ocean cove in P.E.I. the interjection of frozen frames reveals the shadow of Hancox holding a Bolex camera above his head…the words, which now appear as text upon the screen, know no gravity as well… ‘Sense’ in Hancox’s poetical exploration, becomes non-sense. We can only know through repetition, in an enigmatic flash, the presence of the unconcious through absence.” – Dot Tuer, Vanguard “..typography and graphics become significant considerations, not to mention the timing and method of making the words appear and disappear. Comparable elements…when the poem is spoken on the soundtrack… ‘Landfall’ offers an excellent reading of the poem, which is, in turn, well integrated with the film’s visuals.” – William Wees, Words and Moving Images