This is one of the trippiest roller coaster rides of a film you shall ever experience—conflating the seasonal cycle of nature with imagery of the cosmos such as the sun and solar flares and the stars and human sexuality and ancestry, birth and death; the exterior landscape of mountains and snow, the four elements of earth, water, air, and fire, light and shadow, the changes in weather, the world tree; the interior landscape of the human body such as blood vessels. All of these visceral and primal sensations are captured in an eye-popping array of photographic techniques—dense and rapid montage, mythical superimpositions, paint exploding in dances and rhythms and patterns directly on the frame, and other dazzling displays of camera virtuosity and ingenuity. Stan Brakhage’s masterpiece is avant-garde cinema in its zenith.