Trampa de Luz (Pablo Marín, 2021) (Patreon)

Ironically, one of the unexpected benefits of the wholesale switch to digital projection has been a resurgence of Super-8 filmmaking. Not so long ago, even major institutions like MoMA and the Whitney were largely incapable of presenting work in 8, and if they did, there was no guarantee of projection quality. Now, more and more people are exploring the unique qualities of Super-8 -- tactility, intensity of color, close focus, and medium-length depth of field -- by shooting and sometimes even editing in 8, then creating digital transfers as exhibition prints.

A case in point of Trampa de Luz, the newest film from Argentina's Pablo Marín. A study of sylvan light and a waterfall tucked away in the woods, Trampa begins with a tiny frame within the frame, replicating the narrow attention of the Super-8 viewfinder. Soon, Marín begins moving through the forest, branches jutting into the image with a bracing three-dimensionality. The visual space is almost illegible, gravity seemingly suspended. We soon figure out that Marín is filming upside down, with tree trunks grasping the frame from above.

In the second movement of Trampa, we go from black-and-white to color, with an aquamarine diagonal shaft of an image riddled with reflection lines and hashmarks. It's a close-up of the light playing off falling water, which is then superimposed with the reverse diagonal of the same liquid imagery (from a different point), forming a thick, radiant X. Marín suggests a formalist narrative of sorts, as though we'd been searching for this elusive visual treasure and then, once we've found it, marveling at its stark graphic power.