Black Mass Rising

Folk, ambient, guitar and electronic psychedelia accompany this two-hour audiovisual trip blending the spontaneous ideas of its author with her enduring devotion to the occult. Her vision, tightly interwoven with the musical accompaniment, reveals plenty of sinister appeal that successfully manages to avoid being too specific. A more general mystical atmosphere is only just tangible which, instead of evolving into a catharsis, keeps the viewer in a permanent state of intoxication. In its colour and texture, the overall stylisation of the film comes close to the sixties psychedelia familiar not only from the music of the era, but also from the films of Kenneth Anger. Black Mass Rising could thus be seen as a timeless work, but also as an unexpected zephyr wafting in from an age when the hippy era spilled over into something much more menacing. While echoes of the Necronomicon come through with surprising intensity, this isn’t an explicit form of ritual; it’s the force of the imagination that counts. (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival)