Michael Snow's earlier works were all focused entirely on camera movement. First came "Wavelength", which was purely experimental: a slow zoom inwards over a period of forty-five minutes. The camera movement concept was not as great in that particular work, but it was nonetheless there. "Standard Time", which I have not seen, followed it, a simplistic exploration of panning in a singular setting. "Back and Forth" came next, and that was a longer elaboration on it, which provided more depth to the panning movements.
"La Region Centrale" proceeds all of these films, and explores the movements of all in one three-hour movie. That's not to say at all that this 1971 work is just a basic exploration of up-and-down and side-to-side movements. Every type of movement possible is present in Snow's enormous art film, contained in a single setting of the "Central Region" of the title. Indeed, the different kinds of panning that comprises this film could not be caught by the human eye: the project took several years, as Snow had to hire an engineer to build a robotic arm that could move any which way, which could support a 16mm camera. The viewer is treated to the same landscape for three hours, but the view is changed so much over that period of time that at times it doesn't look the same as before. The biggest variable that accomplishes this is the lighting, which changes. It is sometimes pitch black (which I would prefer Snow had cut out most of) sometimes it is dawn, other times it is normal daylight. The inward zooms emphasize and disguise certain features, and the movements of the robotic arm make unseen visual patterns and motions that are incredibly unique.
Is it worth spending three hours of your time on this? Maybe if you are a committed film buff or film theorist. You have to really be immersed in experimental filmmaking to get a lot out of it. For me, the camera movements were interesting and fascinating, yet it did not grip me or completely keep my interest the entire time. I was interested in the beginning, lost that interest in the middle during the night time scenes (it's hard to see anything in that part of the film), and regained it when the daylight returned. The colossal run-time makes it hard to swallow, but it should not go without any credit - not effective like "Back and Forth", but with a type of effectiveness all its own.
Another highlight, outside the crazy movement, is when the viewer catches various peeks of the shadow of the robotic arm, which is a neat behind-the-scenes glimpse.