Preceded by shorts: Mother's Tongue (Irina Leimbacher, U.S., 1991). A daughterrevisits her haunted past, dwelling on her overbearing mother. Afragment of film relentlessly repeated mirrors this subtle tyranny. (4mins, B&W, 16mm, From the artist). Passageà l'acte (Martin Arnold, Austria, 1993). Excerpting a dinnerscene from a Hollywood feature, Arnold adamantly replays gestures untilthis family gathering becomes a purgatory of social indoctrination. (12mins, B&W, 16mm, From Canyon Cinema) DanielReeves's evocative Obsessive Becoming is a reconciliatory return toformative memories, buried deep in the marrow of a once-innocent child.At first we think Reeves, known for his beautifully crafted poeticworks, is unspooling the photographic history of a family's roiled past.Revelations of child abuse, of shadow parents and missing siblingssurface like distorted reflections in water. An image of abuse, capturedby chance in mid-fifties family footage, recycles like a brutish ghost.But Reeves rises above his wounded childhood to embrace a notion offamilial lineage. Though there is a universality to these painful lives,there is also the sweet conviction that love traces our paths. In onestunning sequence, portraits of Reeves's ancestors are morphed,generation to generation, revealing the persistence of a bloodline and ahistory. Obsessive Becoming sees in the child and the man a coming peacewith the future. (54 mins, Color/B&W, 3/4" video, FromElectronic Arts Intermix)-Steve Seid