A very simple event becomes an eerie omen of destruction in Brian Doyle’s “Current.”
Paper, riding the wind, invades New York City. Helicopters fly above the skyscrapers as if inspecting the scene. The amount of paper grows, tangling in tree branches, gliding against buildings. Sheets of it fall like snow. Perhaps it’s a celebration, but where is that smoke coming from?
What first appears to be a parade of some sort quickly begins to look like the aftermath of 9/11, but what Doyle really filmed was the 2000 ticker tape parade for the Yankees, which was in the heart of New York City. Almost a year later the World Trade Center went down and produced similar results. Frankly, it’s all kind of creepy, especially when the audience isn’t told what it is seeing. (I learned all the information from the press release that accompanied the film.)
Viewers will take what they want from this nearly silent display of nature and man, and therein lies the film’s strength. I went from thinking that it looked like the end of the world, to it looking like a parade of some sort and then back again, making this perhaps the most haunting six minutes of film I’ve seen in a long time.
Simply superb.
