Florence Mackenzie

Visually, aurally, technically these two films are completely different, as is their subject matter. Both are short, but utterly compelling.

In Dark Forest Storm Argentinian artist Charly Nijensohn reacts to the deforestation of the Amazon. Filmed on-site in a part of the rainforest ruined by human intervention, he presents an apocalyptic vision of a destroyed world. Nijensohn's first frame misleads us with a fairytale backdrop: clear water flows softly over sun-lit rocks, set to the sound of a delicate stream.

Suddenly thunder bellows and the screen is filled with a terrifying vision. Alone on a raft a man floats through a flooded forest of black, bare tree stumps. There is a vastness here - in his solitude, in the endless horizon, in the all-consuming Nature - that has echoes of the Romantic 'sublime'. It is reminiscent of Caspar David Friedrich's Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog.

Death and foreboding pollute the air. Even Nijensohn's cinematography reflects the isolation and a sense of finality: no editing; each shot of film is self-contained. After a sequence of footage the screen goes black and in this abyss one hears the violent thunder, and then we see once again the loner on his raft.

The repetition of the black void is a representation of our willed blindness, our refusal to recognise that in the end we will be the architects of our own devastation. Friedrich's paintings symbolically portray mortality and despair, but rays of sun always allow for hope. Yet Nijensohn's vision is relentless in its bleakness. Rain pours from the sky, like an eternal grief.

Nova Paul's shots of domestic bliss, quaint suburban homes and cityscapes serve as an unsettling parallel with Nijensohn's depiction of man-made horror. Her 16mm film Pink and White Terraces is a compilation of moments in people's everyday lives.

Following in the footsteps of fellow New Zealander, Len Lye, famous for his experimental films of the 1930s, Paul plays with colour and light. Comprised of a series of static shots montaged on top of each other, the film shows different things happening simultaneously. The top layer is constructed using an optical technique, 'three-colour separation', so that people appear in translucent greens, reds and blues. Like ghosts, they pass seamlessly through each other.

Paul captures the ephemerality of life, as if in one instant she compounds an individual's past, present and future. Her characters don't engage with the camera. We watch them - like an Orwellian Big Brother - busying themselves apparently unawares.

Paired together, the films pose questions about individualism versus collective responsibility. After presenting footage of humans and civilisation, Paul's final shot is of a big solitary oak tree. What is the price of our progress and our indulgence, both artists seem to be asking.