Courtesy of BP Video Library

Divertimento is a classical music genre term covering brief and lightly pleasant - though by no means slackly crafted - pieces for small ensembles. Malcolm Arnold's score for the short film of the same name certainly takes this form (Arnold, incidentally, did a great deal of work writing music for documentaries as well as for feature films, alongside his stand-alone compositions).

And the film itself is a cinematic equivalent. An ensemble team of four members of Verity Films (including its head producer Seafield Head) are credited with production, which consisted of placing together in a compelling form some of the beguiling images that emerged from microscopic and time-lapse photography of oil and other natural substances at British Petroleum's Surrey research laboratory. Although the images themselves have serious scientific content, the point here is not to explain their detailed significance - rather, to excite the senses with a pleasingly arranged exhibition of virtually abstract visions of the molecular world. The effect is indeed, and in the best sense of the word, a diverting one.

Patrick Russell

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