11 x 14

Viewed February 1, 2022. With its series of billboards and lonely roadside buildings, and its elusive narrative about a group of people going somewhere, 11 x 14 feels like a riff on Easy Rider or Two-Lane Blacktop. But Benning seems less interested in the open road as a thematic concept, opting instead to focus in on the way human interference has mutated these landscapes and on translating its hollow, alienating new features through the oblique actions of the people in the frame.

The same happens with Kiarostami's "Five Dedicated to Ozu": I can't see this as a proper feature film, but instead as some sort of minimalist experiment with the camera. It probably influenced Stranger Than Paradise.