Creosote and More: Videos by Eric Saks

Eight years have passed since Eric Saks released his remarkable first feature, the pseudodocumentary Forevermore: Biography of a Leach Lord, but judging from this eye-opening collection of videos, which he’ll present in person, he hasn’t been idle. Touch Tone (1995), reportedly also available in a graphic novel version, loosely recalls Forevermore in its overall form: a hallucinatory first-person monologue preoccupied with technology plays over a surreal collage of processed images. Combining all sorts of found materials, the film at times evokes the animated work of Louis Klahr. The sinister KNBR (1993) employs fatuous radio talk over home movies and obscure printed titles, all of it apparently grouped around the subject of Torrance, California. Gun Talk (Part 1) (1991) features Sluggo from the comic strip Nancy and various nightmarishly masked and voice-distorted individuals discussing firearm-related experiences. But none of these quite prepared me for Saks’s latest work, the 42-minute Creosote. In infernal black and white and spooky multiple exposure, it recounts a fractured narrative as creepy as any of the millennial visions found in Don DeLillo’s Underworld. A scary and essential program. Kino-Eye Cinema at Xoinx Tea Room, 2933 N. Lincoln, Friday, October 3, 7:00, 773-384-5533. –Jonathan Rosenbaum

Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): film still.