The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes (Stan Brakhage, 1971)

8/10
I've been watching a lot of Stan Brakhage shorts lately. I won't rate each one individually but since the above is half an hour long and a pretty major entry in his filmography, it'll be my jumping off point. It's a brutal, uncompromising depiction of actual human autopsies, worlds removed from the stuff you'd see on an episode of CSI. It builts to a frenetic finish that (somehow) leaves you feeling quite tense. After it was over all I could think of was "wow...what an appropriate title".
Other favorites viewed so far are Window Water Baby Moving, a beautiful and unflinching film about his wife giving birth, and Kindering, a dream-like short with children's singing looped in reverse. Cat's Cradle, Mothlight, Eye Myth, The Wold-Shadow, The Garden of Earthly Delights, The Stars Are Beautiful, I...Dreaming, The Dante Quartet, Night Music, Rage Net, Glaze of Cathexis, Delicacies of Molten Horror Synapse and Untitled (For Marilyn) have all been enjoyable on one level or another.