Trees of Syntax, Leaves of Axis

2009 / 35 mm / coul / son / 10 00 35mm prints (this film has to be seen on 35mm!) available via Lightcone Sound (violin): Malcolm Goldstein (original structured improvisation score “Hues of the Spectrum”) Trees of Syntax, Leaves of Axis, is the second collaboration, after All That Rises, with composer/violinist Malcolm Goldstein, who composed and performed for the film the original structured improvisation score, Hues of the Spectrum. The film explores familiar landscape imagery Saïto and Goldstein share in their neighbourhood at the foot of Mount-Royal Park in Montréal, Canada. Using the images of maple trees in the park as main visual motif, Saïto creates a film in which the formations of the trees and their subtle interrelation with the space around them act as an agent to transform viewer’s sensorial perception of the space portrayed. Entirely hand-processed by the filmmaker, Trees of Syntax, Leaves of Axis, with the contrapuntal violin by Goldstein, is a poem of vision and sounding that seeks certain perceptual insight and revelation through a syntactical structure based on patterns, variations and repetition.