Book excerpt: Austrian avant-garde cinema bears a resemblance to materialist and visionary aspects of the American avant-garde, while also manifesting a subversive social critique kindred in spirit to European auteur cinema. This 'third way', staked out by Austrian filmmakers and revealed by this volume, is a unique brand of anti-traditional tradition, equally devoted to rigor and precision as it is to fomenting chaos and liberating energy. It is a counter-universe that uses cinema to penetrate new realms of experience. This book helps us enter its delights and dangers.