This remarkable film marks a new departure in the career of a unique director. Having shed the early classification of a modern Joris Ivens or a Dutch combination of Peter Watkins with the ethonographic school, van der Keuken has set a thrilling high-water mark in "abstract documentary". Not that he had seen "Koyaanisquatsi" before embarking on "Time", but the comparison is irresistible—if for no other reason than the fact that this "little" film is so much better than the million dollar Coppola-backed product.

Here there is a story (well, at least the sense of a story) and the brilliant score by Louis Andriessen is fully and richly complemented by van der Keuken's images.