…elegant yet rustic in its simplicity of execution; tugged gently toward different sides of the set by hints of color and motion interactions, positive and negative spaces, etc., and the unyielding delivery on one of the great apotheoses of poetic cinema at fade-out time.

A series of structurally similar intermittent glides past a simple upper-New York State barn. The barn, gently, bobbing on the screen, demurely reveals its changing silhouette. Each subsection, separated from the others by the light struck film ends into which the illusion descends (and from which it emerges), records a different day/time/light situation. A radiant serenity resolves the oppositions explored in the film: between background-movement, transparent/opaque, sky/earth, figure/ground, flat/solid, and others. One gets to know the tragic beauty of the barn. The eye is pleased, the mind keeps on transcending.

[Source: Harvard Film Archive]
[Source: LUX]