Valse Triste (1977) User Reviews

Sibelius always delivers

[Horst_In_Translation · 6/10 · 13 May 2016]

"Valse Triste" is a 5-minute short film that will have its 40th anniversary next year and it is one of the latter career works by American experimental filmmaker Bruce Conner. During the entire film, we hear Sibelius' "Valse Triste" and it is a thing of beauty. Unfortunately, the video side of this film is never on par with the great music, but this is admittedly a gigantic challenge too. But I have had it several times that the audio in Conner's works was superior to the video. Still, overall I enjoyed the watch here and the action is also not that bad to destroy the film as a whole. Let us just say that the audio elevates the material by a lot. I recommend "Valse Triste", the film and in every other form you can find it too.

A boy's Wet Dream

[patonamu · 9/10 · 16 August 2006]

With a similar dreamy mood like its predecessor "Take the 5:10 to Dreamland" (1976) this clip starts with a boy getting into his bed. The camera zooms in into the boy's mind and a slow, sad waltz(i.e."Valse Triste") accompanies images of a locomotive, a miner, the globe, the sky, a sheep heard, etc. Disparate elements, but if one concentrates only at the movement of the figures, one can perceive a commotion, slowly livening up: The starting wheels of the heavy locomotive, the tired miner pushing the heavy cart of coal bricks, the globe smoothly turning around and around, the clouds imperceptibly floating in the sky, the sheep idly moving in the herd, etc.

We reach the first climax when a mannequin opens her coat like a flower. The second big crescendo spurts out from a "water hose", after watching schoolgirls doing gymnastics for quite a while. A sad, but nostalgic aftertaste lingers in the end when funeral cars drive away through a flooded area...