Wisdom Teeth is an experimental short that pays homage to the aesthetic and angst of early German Expressionist cinema. Shot on super8 and hi contrast 16mm, the grain, darkness and occasional overexposure help to examine the nervous patient's psyche before and during a bizarre oral surgery procedure. Fast imprints of butterfly wings, etc, fly up, down and across the screen in a Brakhage-like frenzy. This is what a celluloid mind looks like during lepidoptric oral extraction. The basic principles of cinematography and more complex effects achieved through optical printing are greatly similar to psychotic and anesthetic effects on the human eye. The lens is an eye and film stock is the section of the brain in which images are etched into. Some amounts of light are far too great for the eye to handle, overexposing reality. The opposite of this, underexposure, is also true. However, cinema is also capable of superimposition, freezing or reversal of time, repetition, close ups and other things comparable only to dreamlike states. Social critic Walter Benjamin once suggested that important mental images develop further afterwards, similar to the photographic process. While this is true, certain other images come about only in the fantastic state of an anxious mind. Wisdom Teeth shows potential images of reality, but also ones existent only in the angst written psyche.

Forms: Experimental, Short
Genres: Underground, Horror, Avant-garde, B-movie, Coming of Age , Cult, Deconstruction, Independent, Post Modern, Surreal, Silent Film
Niches: Student