Director Morrison has spliced together snippets of decayed black-and-white motion picture film, turning the once useless celluloid into a mesmerizing flight of fantasy. Morrison’s source material for Decasia comes from the exotic (Moroccan whirling dervishes) as well as the mundane (waves crashing on a craggy shore), but the real art lies in his editing and what the film has done to itself during the act of falling apart. Emulsions swirl and pop, surge and ebb, doing on their own what it would take a phalanx of computer-aided graphics experts to create.

The work is set to music by Michael Gordon (co-founder/co-artistic director of the Bang on a Can Festival) who uses a 55-piece sinfonietta to elevate the mood of any given segment — a forceful thumping to accompany an industrial mystery machine or slow and loopy while camels stride a distant dune.

For a seemingly simple film, there’s an awful lot going on here, making a viewing an unusual and unusually rewarding experience. Decasia is almost a must-have film; definitely a trump card for those who like to surprise their video viewing guests.

Grade: A