Travel Dream (2013)

Mirroring the flux of dreams and memories, travel footage from a period of intense image gathering (roughly the 1990s) is woven into a grainy hypnotic tapestry; video into dream, dream into video. Dream Travel and Travel Dream are designed to be shown together. McElwee is an alchemist, transforming footage — from ancient architectural monuments, nature and contemporary structures — into imaginative movements that bring the viewer to recognize the temporal nature of all we consider sacred. In a dream-like sequence with ethereal musical accompaniment, figures move slowly around both familiar and mysterious spaces. McElwee masterfully brings universal themes — life and death, sublimity and cruelty, beauty and tragedy — to new depths in relation with all that is. Dickson Beall, Webster-Kirkwood Times,