Recently, van der Keuken commented that "film is not life, but it has to touch your life. It's a second life." These four early poetic films reveal the origins of the complex, layered style of his later documentaries. The lyrical subjective camerawork, detailed observations of everyday life, and sensitivity to inner reality make these portraits, miniatures really, among the most lovely of short films. While "time, movement, and framing" is the subject of all of van der Keuken's work (he is as much devoted to the abstract as the figurative), he hopes the fragmented glimpse he captures of a moment in another's life also sends us beyond the frame, to the life that continues outside of the film. Beppie (1965, 35 mins) is an expressive ten year old girl who lived on the same canal as van der Keuken. She gives us a tour, often at a skip, of her world. In Herman Slobbe/Blind Child 2 (1966, 29 mins) a young blind man talks of his blindness, the struggles of blacks, and in two unforgettable scenes takes over the microphone to provide his own sound. Van der Keuken found Ben Webster, the legendary tenor sax who played with Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, and Fletcher Henderson, in an Amsterdam boarding house. In Big Ben/Ben Webster in Europe (1967, 32 mins) he draws on the improvisation and spontaneity of jazz to create a dynamic sense of the legend. Preceded by the short film A Moment's Silence (1960-1963, 10 mins, Color).-Kathy Geritz