Director: Doug Aitken
Run Time: 71 minutes
Synopsis: A train travels 4,000 miles across North America with a revolving community of artists and musicians who collaborate on recordings, artworks, films, and 10 “happenings” across the States.
Station to Station is an unusual one to review and not because the words aren’t there but because, like this documentary, the film is an ever-changing, evolving narrative that doesn’t really have a beginning or ending. Sure, there’s a literal open and close as the train travels from the Atlantic to the Pacific over 24 days but the truth is…this kind of journey happens all the time and so when we take the assumption of a normal review, with context and order, we’d end up taking away from the achievement and design behind this style of filmmaking.
“I had a reservation about every occupation I was ever on the brink of…”
In some moments, Station to Station becomes a reflection and commentary on our existing society. The media around us continue to advise you should do this, go there, and as much as I found myself being inspired by Station to Station, it made me want to write and thus – in turn – created a continual story outside of the one I was watching. This part I found fascinating, as I’ve always had a connection with perpetual movement and its affect on the creative nature of the mind. As well as this, there was also an occasional desire to stop and get off and take a step back but you can’t, you have to watch, take it all in and let it just happen. Which could be said to push against the ‘norm’ of now when everyone holds a habit of pulling out their phones to record what’s happening in front of them – rather than just accepting the moment.
“We’ve been all around the world.”
The train is the fulcrum around which everything happens, the events don’t all specifically take place ‘on’ the train but the suggestion is that we’re traveling as part of the link between it.
“How’s my driving?”
(41) holds insightful points from Gary Indiana. His words (paraphrasing Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness) on society are unerring to where many are heading and sadly where others already are.
‘Light echoes’ is also particularly impressive and as a general reaction, the strip-lights on the train carriages are pretty special, like a repeated echo memory of something departed.
“Make the familiar look a little bit different.”
Doug Aitken’s Station to Station is a huge collaboration and so one for the artists but also those encouraged and excited by ever-changing creative possibilities. If you’re asking ‘what’s the point?’ well, for me, if you’re paying attention then you’ll discover a carnival of life, music, diversity, travel, and humanity. It’s a unique trip that unravels more layers than you expect. It’ll also make you want to explore and remind you not to be afraid of reinvention but to embrace and celebrate it instead.
Station to Station screened at the Sydney Film Festival and opens in the UK on 26th June with Dogwoof.
