Los

James Benning's California Trilogy consists of three cinematic surveys of different regions of the eponymous US state, all of them topographical image-sound studies of the interweaving of landscape, culture, history, and politics. Each film is divided into 35 shots, which each last 2.5 minutes.

LOS: This portrait of Los Angeles is like the urban counterpart to EL VALLEY CENTRO. Benning explores the metropolitan area, showing factories, freeways, sports fields, a junkyard, a courthouse, shopping centers, industrial and residential areas. People are mostly absent; when they appear, they remain anonymous or foreign entities in the stony landscape. The stricter the mathematical precision of the structure of Benning's films, the freer the viewer is to explore the images and the more intense the visual experience.