How fitting that Christian Marclay is Swiss. His 24-hour film The Clock won the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale and manages to tie together a long multicolored thread that passes through nearly every corner of the cinematic universe. The elasticity of time has always been one of film’s hallmarks and the source of both its dramatic tension and escapist appeal. What Marclay has done through hours and hours of archiving is create a collage made up of those signpost moments in cinema that situate viewer temporally - here a wristwatch emerging from underneath a buttoned sleeve, there a flickering digital clock keeping watch over a sleeping couple. The action lurches backwards and forwards historically, thematically and across continents but hold its balance like a tightrope walker along the axis which bounds us all: the 24 hours of the day, ticking inexorably forward, whether by quartz, mechanical spring or even sundial. The effect is at once mesmerizing and soothing. Sitting there transfixed with viewers streaming in and out according to their own natural rhythms, you’ll feel oddly at one with time and your fellow man.

Critical Mob