User Reviews

This short film is from a collection of experimental films entitled "Avant-Garde: Vol. 3:" and is from Disc 1. It's a collection of films that most folks today would probably care very little about, but for some reason I like seeing many of these unusual little art films. Perhaps you will also.

"The Petrified Dog" is an 18 minute film from Sidney Peterson. Despite being silent (there's no audible dialog), there is a VERY cacophonous musical accompaniment which I assume was only included to annoy the viewer. Some might see this as artsy, I see it as the act or a sadist. As for the action in the film, it's often quite surreal or keeps featuring closeups of the same ugly little girl making faces at the camera. Of all the films on Disc 1, this might just be the most annoying and difficult to watch--apart from his other film on the disc, "The Lead Shoes". Artsy? I dunno...it just seemed painful and bad. There must be better ways to spend your life than watching this one.

No one will be sure on how they feel about Sidney Peterson's filmography. Those who have followed his works will know that there is no exact meaning of events and actions is not always clear. In ''The Petrified Dog (1949)" he starts off with a brilliant title credits. We then see a man in slow motion, a woman stops to put on lipstick in the street, then we shift to almost picturesque images in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco: an avant-garde staging of photographer, a painter daubing at a landscape in an empty frame, we then see a a empty hole in the ground. The sequence is repeated with new characters and visual motifs, there's also a dancing skeleton. This is what happens throughout the film and you might feel like the plot is lost just like the painter.

But it is not a negative as Peterson intertwines surrealism in a dream-like film to push the boundaries of imagination and creativity with enormous honesty. Anyone who engages in experimental films will be rewarded with an experience that impresses with its visual imagery.

Final thoughts, i want to end it with a quote from David Lynch: "I don't know why people expect art to make sense. They accept the fact that life doesn't make sense."