Quote:
"La Raison Avant La Passion [...] was the festival's most difficult film [First Festival of Women's Films, Philadelphia, June 1972]. Halfway through its 80 minutes, people began to leave. In this, the second part of a political trilogy, [Joyce Wieland's] camera catches the land-flow of Canada across the deep space of the country, through car, train and plane windows, at different times of day and varying exposures. The illusion of depth and space is constantly alerted by the flat, computerized permutations of the phrase, (Trudeau's words,) 'reason over passion', flashing over the screen in 537 different forms. The bold course of her journey, with emblems as guides, using different kinds of time to change rhythms, (body-time, film-speed, train-time, etc.) as well as the obvious fact that the 'passion' of trees, mountains, and huge-ness is wild enough to conquer all 'reason' make this a long, lyric contradiction of Trudeau's words, totally radical in form. In structure and treatment, the film differs so greatly from the dull rhythms of the media in our daily lives, that the audience was confused, bored, and jolted. Yet most people who saw it can't forget it, and a small minority made a point of letting me know they found it complex, fascinating, and endlessly interesting."
-- Alexandra Grilikhes

Source:
Grilikhes, Alexandra. "Philadelphia's First International Festival: Films by Women, 1928-1971." Film Library Quarterly 6, no. 1 (Winter 1972-1973). (pp. 50-51)