In the late Sixties, Jonas Mekas characterized Warren Sonbert (who, at the time, had made only three films) as “a very promising young filmmaker who is coming into the cinema with a world not touched by anybody else,” and noted Sonbert's “use of modern cinema techniques to tell poetic stories...(his films are more short stories than poems)....” Since that time, Sonbert has continued to make films steadily, working on each film for several years, and revising them even after they are released. He has also gathered a sizeable following, both in the Bay Area and in New York.
Though his films are generally characterized as “diary films,” Amy Taubin, writing in the Soho Weekly News, comments, “Certain aspects of Sonbert's filmmaking fall into the category of the diary film. Shooting is part of his everyday life and he travels with his Bolex. He doesn't pre-plan his films.... But his editing structure has nothing to do with diary. The films are organized neither chronologically nor narratively, but through varying kinds of visual associations, rhymes and puns.”
