The expression “Once in a blue moon” refers to an event that almost never happens.The scientific term “Blue Moon” is used to describe to a rare occurrence in the lunar calendar when two full moons appear in the same month.

Gabriele Stellbaum’s film “Blue Moon” begins with the view of an autumn tree which is seen through an open kitchen window on an upper-floor apartment. Small birds flit here and there outside. Inside the kitchen, in front of the window, a woman sits at a table with a cup of tea. She appears withdrawn and occupied by her thoughts. The sudden ringing of a telephone off-camera interrupts her solitude but she doesn´t react to the call.

Next the film cuts to an outdoor shot of leaves tumbling onto an old, deserted, slow-moving children´s playground roundabout. As the roundabout slowly spins round, we listen to an answerphone message left for a “Mrs. Griffin.”

In the following scene we see the woman, perhaps Mrs. Griffin, dressed in a winter coat walking along a path in a mysterious forest in autumn. She is carrying a strange-looking black bag over her shoulder and she seems to be headed on a mission. She stops at a bench, unpacks the bag and starts to assemble a leaf-blower. She starts up the machine and begins cleaning the forest path she is walking along. She blows all the fallen leaves along the forest path. She appears intent in her task of clearing the path of all its leaves. The leaves are shown blowing in slow-motion and also in reverse. Her act appears absurdist in its physical impossibility.

In the final sequence of the film, the camera cuts to inside the top deck of a double-decker bus, where we observe Mrs Griffin sitting in the front seat, riding home through the forest in the late afternoon light.

“Blue Moon” is a short poetic film. It features few words. It has a strong musical component, and its atmosphere builds in a series of intriguing, complex and increasingly dreamlike sequences.