Unlike her two most recent films ("NO," "Teatro Amazonas"), both comprised of single shots, "Pine Flat" consists of 12 ten-minute shots, divided by a 10-minute "intermission" card backed by a child singing. First six shots observe youths in solitude, while the latter half-dozen consider kids in various groups, from a pair of girls playing on a swing hanging from a giant oak, to two young couples making out in a sea of sun-drenched wheatgrass.

Such description only begins to suggest the overwhelming beauty of the images, which will remind some of the humans-in-nature images of Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon," and indeed, match Kubrick for pastoral magnificence.

Lockhart is known for obsessively working over her images, and those unaccustomed to either structuralist filmmaking or lengthily held shots may be challenged beyond endurance. But after some time has passed, the patient viewer will experience a feeling of existing with these children.

Only the title hints at a specific locale, which is around the Pine Flat Lake area in the western Sierra Nevada. A map location is beside the point, though, since the natural landscapes provide a primordial, timeless majesty sure to make this one of Lockhart's most durable works.

Bookending the film with wintry, snow-filled images gives the overall structure a powerful sense of the seasons, though intermission break is so long that it damages the film's carefully established rhythm. While it's wonderful to see such lensing craft in 16mm, 35mm lensing would have been mind blowing.

Camera (color, 16mm), Lockhart; editor, Erika Vogt; sound, Becky Allen; supervising sound editor, Glynna Grimala. Reviewed at Sundance Film Festival (Frontiers), Jan. 25, 2006. (Also in Berlin Film Festival -- Forum Expanded.) Running time: 137 MIN.