Yellowstone 88 – Song of Fire

Evocative, magical, suspended in a mythic world of woodland folklore where animals are predominant and the planet moves to encircle the ecosystem in a constant tranquil accord, Yellowstone 88 – Song of Fire tells the story of the devastating fires that engulfed the park for five months of 1988 until winter snows and rain quelled the inferno and ended the destruction – or did they? In dual tones of fiery reds, purples, yellows, and oranges set against a dark, burning backdrop of damaged, diseased and drought-ridden trees, dry lightning sparks a fire that rages like an avenging angel until its crusade is complete. We see the many animals that live in the park – bears, bison, elk, deer, ground squirrels, foxes, and coyotes. We see trees and scrub and plant life. We see mountains and rivers and valleys. We see dawn and dusk and the dark night skies that reveal the magnificent nebula in the galaxy above. These sculpted two-dimensional animals – part spirit and part real – flee the fire to quickly reach a place of safety, if they can. Some go to water, some go underground. Eventually a white winter snow of intense severity covers the scorched earth where now nothing edible can grow, and fauna, exhausted from the fire and weakened by hunger, starve to death in search of food. Bleak and desolate, the starry cosmos turns from one season to the next and the next. As the land rests and renews, life begins again like the primordial spring. Flora grows in abundance, nourished by the fallen ashes of destruction, and animals and birds return in strength to once again reclaim their birthright. And so the story is as much about evolution as loss and the spirit that resides in such an ancient forest.