Circadian Rhythms (1976)

CIRCADIAN RHYTHMS is the New Zealand equivalent of Bunuel and Dali's landmark avant-garde film UN CHIEN ANDALOU (1928). Made up of a series of sequences scripted from dreams CIRCADIAN RHYTHMS attempts to bypass the conscious mind to explore the subconscious. The film opens on shots of a man driving car along a multi-lane highway. Following a car crash the film goes into the man's mind as a flash of consciousness and emotions, complete with exclamatory intertitles such as, "Most mirrors are homosexual," dreamlike imagery and an electronic soundtrack by the New Zealand composer Ross Harris. Toward the end of the film we hear the sound of a woman panting in birth labour. As the images fade to white we hear the actual birth of a child and its bark like cry as it comes to consciousness of the world.