User Reviews

Despite having little and currently no distribution this film may still be on a few peoples radar. The two things which might bring this film to your attention are the facts that it was produced by Grove Press and has a credit to Antony Balch , information that is missing from this IMDb entry but which appears in the film credits. These two are linked via William Burroughs who's work was published by Grove Press and who was a friend of Balch. Burroughs also collaborated with Balch on a number of films and the pair at one time lived in the same building in London. Balch has a cult cinema rep both for his work with Burroughs and in his own right as the Director of two cult features "Secrets of Sex" aka "Bizarre" and "Horror Hospital". Grove Press has a 60 year history of publishing experimental literature and campaigning for free speech in artistic expression. Balch's contribution to "Psychomontage" is credited as additional photography along with one Harold Greene so its not clear what material he might have been involved in and what Mr Greenes input was. The film is constructed from stock elements, that is film materials originally made for other productions. The backbone of the piece is a film called "La Petite Morte" this provides the narrative elements of "Psychomontage". This shows a girl who is spied on as she walks her dog undresses bathes and so on. In it's original form it is a comment on voyeurism but this element doesn't entirely translate here. Into this other material which shows animals interacting, a building being demolished, lava flows, planes flying, sporting events and microscopic life amongst other things is inter cut in an" Eisensteinian" manner. The sound design is at times naturalistic seeming to belong to the images and at other times asynchronous and atmospheric. Apart from the obviously erotic nature of much of what we see and hear I wouldn't care to hazard a guess as to what it might be saying. It is suggested in the previous review that the piece was conceived by the Kronhausen's as a psychological test so presumably the meaning one perceives is intended to reveal something about the observer. 1963 is given as the year of production and the Grove/Burroughs/Balch connections place this in the beat experimental underground culture of the period so what may seem obscure or juvenile film making today was probably a genuine attempt to expand the use of cinema in it's time. The full title is "Psychomontage No1" so presumably a series was intended perhaps this was not successful enough to warrant further episodes. Though not for everybody those with an interest in art and avant garde cinema should be interested in this. As a little sidelight silent 8mm copies were sold via Grove Press' Evergreen Review magazine, an early attempt at expanded multi media publishing and marketing the underground.