Preceded by Short The Seasons (Arthur Peleshian, Armenia, 1975): Shepherds slide perilously down a snow-covered mountain, one after the other, cradling their fleecy charges. This kind of chivalry inhabits The Seasons, a breathtaking depiction of the hardships and vigor of rural life, set, not incongruously, to Vivaldi. Arthur Peleshian is a master of montage who is a true descendent of Vertov and Eisenstein (and contemporary of Bruce Conner). But his "distance montage," the counterpoint over time of images and sounds, effects rhythms and moods his predecessors never attempted. (30 mins, B&W, 35mm, From PFA Collection) Rapt is set in the Swiss Alps, amid avid German-French rivalries. Following a stone-throwing incident which leads to the death of a goatherd, a young German-speaking woman (Dita Parlo) is abducted and taken to the village of her French-speaking captor; there she remains, the object of fear, suspicion, and desire, plotting her revenge. Kirsanoff's style is at once angular, sensual, and direct; in Rapt there is, as well, "a mixture of the fantastic (with) violent eroticism, and practically spellbinding cruelty." (Hervé Dumont) Kirsanoff was also a musician and his experimentation with contrapuntal sound, in collaboration with composers Honegger and Hoérée, is remarkable. "Musical motifs sound as counterparts to visual rhythms and themes; natural and artificial sounds merge; narrative units are encompassed in musical forms." (Donald Richie)