24/70 Western
In 24/70 Western, recognition of the image being filmed (an anti-war poster picturing the My Lai massacre entitled "And Babies") is withheld, through close-up filming of the surface of the image, never stepping back to reveal the whole. The method in this film (as in 20/68 Schatzi) acts to subvert the quick responses of viewers to such loaded imagery.
In all of Kren´s films, the images are variously covered and uncovered, hidden and revealed, never taken for granted.
(David Levi Strauss, "Notes on Kren: Cutting Through Structural Materialism or, "Sorry. It had to be done."," in: Cinematograph I, San Francisco 1985)
The alien impression of photography in Western is caused by the use of extreme close-up. Kren’s camera moves across the details of a Vietnam Poster in single frames as if, with trembling closeness and persistent repetition, he wanted to win a new truthfulness from the picture.
(Hans Hurch)