Pat O'Neill, one of the most interesting filmmakers in America today, offers a dazzling reflection on the conflict between nature and man in Los Angeles, or the desertification of the city's surroundings due to its enormous water consumption. More interestingly, it is also a film in the age-old tradition of city symphonies: a film about LA's foundation myths and the dreams it embodies, about its history and (grim) future, its topography and ethnography. O'Neill uses footage from several classic films to recreate the several layers of meaning emanating from the city, juxtaposing images and fantasies and hardly ever allowing one picture to go untouched. George Lockwood's swarming soundtrack is likewise composed of conflicting languages, an elaborate work of plunderphonics in which snippets of sound stolen from movies collide with electronic soundscapes, contemporary chamber music, improv, and what not.

011668 appears as an iteration of the Japanese kappa. With a sense of humor and a taste for flesh, the amphibious reptiloid has been described as both a water sprite and river scourge. Unearthed from the carcass of Owens Lake by Mulholland himself, 011668 was held in captivity until 1924 when a group of California Water Activists released the creature into the Los Angeles Aqueduct. Upon arrival 272 kilometers south, 011668 remained an urban legend until 1938, when 115 people were killed in a “major flood.” The City of Los Angeles swiftly requested the support of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to contain the creature within a concrete hex, where it remains today.