Some movies actually happen in your mind. Ok, all films are a product of what we bring to it as much as the story the filmmaker tells in imagery and sound. But there are some films that don’t seek to articulate the story for you; instead, they provide a canvas on which a viewer fills in the colors and lines. IDFA opened with such a film, 4 Elements by Jiska Rickels. From the program, “Rickels shows how man lives and works in both struggle and symbiosis with fire, water, earth and air.” These thematic elements help to shape the journey of your thoughts as you watch, but depending on your experience of “fire” for example, could take each viewer in a different direction from another.

Another such film is El Arbol (The Tree) by Gustavo Fontan, which screened at Tribeca. I was surprised to read The Reeler review at Spout.com, “Fontan fails to create much of a compelling aesthetic, resulting in a bunch of murky high-def images that never add up to much. Lesson learned: Steer clear of any movie described as a ‘meditation’ on anything.” This seems to miss the very basic conceptualization of the type of film.

Earlier films of this ilk that come to mind are the Godfrey Reggio films; my favorite of the trilogy is Naqoyqatsi. Yo Yo Ma’s soundtrack combined with intense images had me weeping in the theater, and of the other 2 people who were there with me, one was asleep and the other walked out. This style isn’t for everyone, but I think it is important to recognize that what these filmmakers are striving for is something entirely different than your usual character-driven, tell-me-a-story film.

Other standouts include Ron Fricke’s Baraka and Microcosmos, a wonderful film of the microscopic world. Fricke’s Spirit of Baraka website also includes Winged Migration and a few others I haven’t seen. Want to add to the list of experiential docs?