Imaginary

Imaginary is a film in three parts (From Today, Touched and One) shot in varying intimate and personal environments. Fleeting images are re-filmed and stylised in an unsentimental manner.
‘Moira Sweeney also uses the optical printer in her dream-like film Imaginary, in which shots of a cottage window-sill and the view of the coast beyond are slowed to about one fifth of their normal speed. This treatment imparts a gentle rocking motion to the camera movements, and renders grain sharply visible in the coastal views so that they acquire a kind of pointillist flatness. Sweeney’s constant use of the printer sometimes takes her work towards a vapid formalism, but Imaginary is redeemed by a tender melancholy which unifies the rustic window and the deserted landscape beyond.’ – Nicky Hamlyn, Art Monthly, Feb 1989.