Many films by this master of landscape cinema are cinematic studies of specific landscapes, as is the case with SOGOBI – the Shoshonean word for "Earth" –, Benning's approach to the Californian wilderness in 35 carefully composed scenes with a great depth of field and devoid of humans. "I spent a year in the middle of nowhere and perhaps this is the closest I've come to portraying a true sense of place." (James Benning)