While Hopkina, who is based in New York and Massachusetts, has been included in many local group exhibitions and screenings, Basso dives deep into the artist's work with six films created over a nine-year period. As a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation/Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indian, Hopkina's use of poetry and atmospheric aesthetics is not only visually compelling, but mines the edges of linguistic, visual, and cultural legibility.
Train Dreams, Clint Bentley's glorious rendering of Denis Johnson's elliptical novella borders on visual poetry as it profoundly observes one man's existence. It's a transcendent experience that echoes the best elements of Terrence Malick's films, particularly in how a wandering camera caresses and gazes at the awesomeness, and danger, of nature. But Train Dreams never gets manacled by arc creative pretensions, resisting the urge to surrender to opaqueness (which doesn't always happen in Malick's films).