TEST PICTURES

Focuses on the failure of a rural commune with two ‘beautiful people’ who drop out of city life at the height of the hippie period but discover nothing in the countryside but their own inadequacies.

“What it presents is not ‘characters’ in a contrived ‘story’, but people involved in a private world and in a small enclosed community. It contrasts the noise and press of the city with the freedom of the country; the influence of the group with the self-expression of the individual. ‘Eleven vignettes of a relationship’ is how the sub- title describes it. There is neither false sentiment nor unnecessary drama in the telling. Alienation and observation are the chosen style. The camera subtly emphasises the separation and the break- down in communication that can lead to a kind of spiritual apartheid” - (Peter Harcourt, Fourth Wellington Film Festival programme,1975, pg.14)

“Test Pictures does not have anything profound to say about life, but it does capture the flavour of a particular relationship and the texture of a particular landscape. The spectator must stop worrying about the absence of a plot, and must stop waiting for ‘something to happen’, so that he can respond fully to the image that is on the screen at the moment [...] Geoffrey Steven’s photography and Philip Dadson’s sound- track make small events in the film rich and sensuous...” - (Roger Horrocks, Craccum, unknown date)