The Way Things Go Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

The Way Things Go Blu-ray Movie Review

Creative Destruction

Reviewed by Michael Reuben April 21, 2015

In Broadcast News, Holly Hunter illustrates her point about the trivialization of TV news by showing a college journalism class a clip of an elaborate domino show that dominated one evening's broadcasts. Rather than being appalled, the class applauds. By a strange coincidence, in the same year that Broadcast News was released, Swiss installation artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss made The Way Things Go (Der Lauf der Dinge; literally, "The Run of Things"), a hybrid between a documentary and an art film that expands the concept of a "domino show" into a whole new realm. In a warehouse nearly 100 feet long, the two artists laid out an elaborate sequence of events using such ordinary items as tires, trash bags, ladders, chairs, wooden planks, pitchers and string, so that, once triggered, the entire arrangement activated and continued activating for half an hour. They filmed the result.

A self-destructing installation like the one captured in The Way Things Go is far too large, elaborate and delicate (not to mention dangerous, given the pyrotechnics involved) to repeat, especially in a public space. In effect, the filmed record is the work. The film is part of the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Museum Wiesbaden in Wiesbaden, Germany, and the Pompidou Center in Paris, France. It has also been shown at museums and exhibitions in Glasgow, Philadelphia, Copenhagen, Vancouver, Montreal, Perth and Valencia. It initially premiered at the exhibition known as Documenta 8 in Kassel, Germany.

Icarus Films, which specializes in documentaries and art films, has brought The Way Things Go to home theater in a combination Blu-ray-and-DVD package.

The Way Things Go has no dialogue or narration, and no explanatory text to advise the viewer on how the various effects were achieved. You can figure out many of the mechanical elements just by watching, but some happen very fast, and others rely on chemical reactions at which the viewer can only guess. Also, while the film attempts to create the impression of a continuous take from start to finish, there are obvious edits. Film cameras cannot shoot takes of this length, and in 1987 digital cameras were still many years in the future.

After a single title card, the camera focuses on a large, fully loaded and irregularly shaped trash bag suspended from the ceiling above a tire. A support is removed, and the cord holding the trash bag begins to unwind. As it does, the trash bag slowly descends while rotating, until it catches the tread of the tire, pushing it forward to the right of the frame. The rolling tire triggers the next effect, and so on and so on, for the next half hour. The action pauses only occasionally, just long enough for chemicals to react with each other, or for liquid to accumulate as a counterweight, or, in one inspired moment, for a column to sink deeper into a softening foundation so that the weight resting on top of it slips off and starts the next reaction.

Some of the effects are almost magical. A few tires appear to roll uphill; in fact, each one has a weight strategically attached inside that pulls the tire forward a short distance as the weight descends, and the tire settles into a prearranged slot (on an angled ladder, for example) from which it cannot roll back. Fire is a critical element, whether as candles, as flammable liquids or as burning fuses that may ignite anything, including small rockets and fire crackers used to propel objects forward. Liquids of all kinds pour, spill, mix and disburse. As random and homemade as they may appear to be, Fischli's and Weiss's creations are precision products utilizing exacting principles of physics, chemistry and architecture.

What does this all mean? The chapter titles provided by Icarus are grand and vaguely philosophical, but they do not offer any insight: "Commonplace", "Transformation", "Reaction", "Propagation" and "Kinetics". Abstract and conceptual art has always been hard-pressed to explain its meaning, but maybe the problem is the question itself. A film like The Way Things Go offers an experience, not a message, and the experience is unique and absorbing, in part because so many of the objects incorporated by Fischli and Weiss into their domino effect demolition derby are otherwise bland and ordinary. (It's like something the TV character MacGyver might create if he stayed up all night on speed.) As each viewer studies the intricate chain reaction, he or she will have different thoughts and associations. I found myself reflecting on cause and effect, especially distant effects that one's actions set in motion but are too far away to be foreseen. Each viewer will bring something different to the film, but I doubt anyone will be bored.

The Way Things Go Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Way Things Go was shot by Swiss documentary cinematographer Pio Corradi. According to Icarus, the film has been fully restored for this 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray, and it certainly looks it. The source material is clean and without blemish. The detail of the various objects and contraptions is impressive, especially when the materials have complex textures such as unfinished wood or tire treads. Consistent with the warehouse setting and the makeshift style of the objects, the colors are generally dull and bland, but there are bright flashes whenever something ignites, and some of the flames burn with unusual colors because of the chemicals fueling them (green is especially vivid).

Icarus has mastered the film with an average bitrate of 26.81 Mbps, which is fine for this material.

The Way Things Go Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The film's original mono track is presented as lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0 with identical left and right channels. It is immediately apparent from the soundtrack that the various events occurring on camera were recorded live, then amplified as much as possible to give the viewer a sense of being right next to the action. An unavoidable side effect was to amplify the background hiss of the recording, so that listening to the film at reference levels will be an unpleasant experience, and the volume should be reduced. Even at the lower volume, the sounds of objects rolling, colliding and crashing, of liquids pouring and flames erupting, will be loud and distinctive. These are the sole elements on the soundtrack and, in concert with the arresting imagery, they are thoroughly engrossing.

The Way Things Go Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The disc has no extras.

The Way Things Go Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Most discussions of The Way Things Go invoke comparisons to cartoonist Rube Goldberg and the fanciful "machines" that sprang from his imagination. The difference is that the typical Rube Goldberg machine took the long way around to actually do something (usually something simple), whereas Fischli's and Weiss's creation doesn't accomplish anything at all. It exists solely to run its course and, in the process, to delight, intrigue and infuriate. Maybe there's a metaphor in there after all. Not your usual Blu-ray, but highly recommended as an entertaining novelty.