A Day with the Boys (1969)

In his bold, poetic approach, Clu Gulager manages to pack a decade's worth of experimentation into a fast, economical 20 minutes. Images dissolve and bleed into one another, freeze-frame and turn into paintings. Gulager also utilizes different camera speeds and even (and this is something I haven't seen before) the grain of the film to achieve his effects. Laszlo Kovacs' sun bleached photography helps immeasurably in streamlining such techniques into a powerfully eccentric, disturbingly compelling narrative. Far from pretentious (the word I'd use to describe most "experimental" films from the late sixties), this film comes off both as a celebration of childhood innocence and an uncompromising examination of its darkest extremes. And furthermore, Gulager and Kovacs achieve what may be the most unsettling final freeze frame ever.