The Cinematheque

“Plays like a meditation in the flesh, and it’s luxuriously trippy. You don’t watch it so much as sink into it … Visionaries such as Norman McLaren, Michael Snow—and Peter Mettler—remind us that cinema can still be a revolutionary art, and that Canadians often feel most at home on its cutting edge.”

Brian D. Johnson, Maclean’s

From an airport mega-church where a pastor performs flamboyant feats of faith-healing to poncho-clad crowds gathering to witness the implosion of a Vegas hotel; from recovering Swiss addicts reviewing their lives’ winding paths and precarious desires to spontaneously sacred encounters with strangers in India—Mettler’s most emblematic work is rigorously associative, traversing diverse continents and landscapes, spiritual convictions and psychological states. Transcendence is the core theme, prepared improvisation the modus operandi. Whether flying solo or accompanied by a skeleton crew, Mettler’s capacity to be fully present, his gentle approach to interlocution, and his uncanny antenna for eccentricity draw in a stream of fascinating characters ready to articulate their longing for the infinitely varied sublime. A film of arrivals and departures, this Genie-winning, intuition-fuelled essay on peak experience is a peak in Mettler’s oeuvre and should be on any list of the greatest Canadian films ever made.

“Compelling, exhilarating, funny, imaginative, and… well, wise. It’s that rare thing, a genuinely philosophical film.”

Geoff Andrew, Time Out

“One of the most remarkable features of this or any year … A work of brilliance … Mettler has placed himself in the forefront of the contemporary cinema scene.”

Marc Glassman, Festival Magazine