7/10
A rating for an experimental video art installation is pretty arbitrary I suppose but anyway...Jeremy Blake's Century 21 is part of a trilogy including two other similarly themed works, Winchester and 1906. All three center on the Winchester Mystery House and the imagined mental state of Sarah Winchester herself. Hypercolor images of the House blend with Blake's paintings and drawings and backed with a full radio dial's worth of soundtrack, with 50's Western themes playing a major role. Some stills here, here and here to give a better idea.
More interesting than the film is the story of Blake and his partner, artist Theresa Duncan. After moving to New York and achieving success within the industry (you may know Blake's work from an animation he did for Punch-Drunk Love, or Beck album covers and music videos) the couple became increasingly paranoid and convinced they were being harassed and surveilled by the Church of Scientology. After alienating virtually everyone close to them via increasingly erratic behavior, Duncan committed suicide by overdosing on pills and Blake followed a week after, walking naked into the ocean and drowning. Gus Van Sant is apparently involved in a movie about the two based on an extremely interesting Vanity Fair article.
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