24,483 Dreams of Death is an experimental film in the truest sense of the word. According to the website the film was created by having a neural network watch La Maschera del Demonio [Black Sunday] (Mario Bava, 1960). Chris Peters then recorded the process of the AI integrating the information. Separately, another AI was trained on 19th century poetry and created the text of the film, narrated by Naomi Petit.

The title, by the way, refers to a large number of “miniature neural networks” that were created in the process, then “destroyed.” The creator wonders if the morbid direction of the poetry is some form of self-knowledge, then dismisses the idea.

An experimental film can be important without being entertaining. This is a sequence of eight warbly, noisy black and white images in slow zooms and dissolves, amounting to not much, but the human nature of finding faces in everything certainly plays a role. The poetry (and does this count as poetry is a whole conversation to be had) is bland and meaningless, and is, yes, generally dark in tone. It is a small sampling of the vast generated content, so I assume Peters just chose what fit the mood. I kept waiting for something to happen. Like maybe this was a 15-minute screamer! But no, it is consistent throughout. I couldn’t really say anything specific differentiated the eight clips.

So the film asks questions. Is it a film? Is it poetry? Who should be credited with its creation? And, honestly, is the conceit real? Ever since The Blair With Project, I’ve had trouble believing directorial explanations. But I am sure this is an early adopter of something we’ll see more of in our lifetimes.

24,483 Dreams of Death is currently playing at Slamdance 2021.

6 out of 10 Dreams of Death