Liquid Crystals (1978)

• 67%
• 1978
• Documentary
• Jean Painlevé

Title cards introduce images we watch without narration; they are displays of shape and color. François de Roubaix's electronic music accompanies these images, photographed under a polarizing microscope. Some liquids obey the laws of crystallization; we observe those transformations. Sometimes objects flowing, other times they change as if in a kaleidoscope. Colors give way to sepia, then back to multiple colors. The crystals can look like tiny organisms: small four-part fans share the frame with flowing lines of pink. Multiple patterns appear side by side.