Nightfall

Shot in his garage-studio, the camera records Ader painstakingly hoisting a large brick over his head. His figure is harshly lit by two tangles of light bulbs. He suddenly loses control of the brick, crushing one strand of lights. As he again lifts the brick, allowing tension and dread to accrue, the climax seems inevitable—the brick will (and does) fall and terminate the camera’s remaining illumination. Here the film abruptly ends with the irrevocable logic of consciousness extinguished. This simple cause and effect sequence performs a narrative that is startlingly incongruous with its conclusion. The brick is witnessed demolishing the lights, but that seems to be an insufficient explanation for the void of meaning it leaves in the wake of the film’s ending—the blunt finality of another’s death, by implication, creates a similar scramble to find language for a disturbing rupture.