‘Once Upon a Time in Seattle’ @ Northwest Film Forum

Seattle has changed so much over the past 20-odd years that it can be difficult to remember what the city looked or felt like even a decade ago. “Once Upon a Time in Seattle” turns the movies into a kind of accidental archive, assembling moments from more than 40 films shot around town (plus a few convincing Seattle stand-ins) into a strange, funny, occasionally poignant portrait of a city in flux.

The 101-minute film is the work of Collide-O-Scope, aka Shane Wahlund and Michael Anderson, the editing duo known for their gleefully weird montages of vintage video, found footage, pop-culture debris and other audiovisual oddities. Here, they dispense with linear narrative and dialogue, letting the city serve as both setting and main character. Most clips last less than 20 seconds and more than half flash by in five seconds or less, creating a rapid-fire journey through Seattle’s changing streets, skylines, landmarks and moods. Their free-associative approach encourages viewers to make their own connections as familiar buildings appear, disappear and sometimes return wearing new identities.

The result is part action movie, part free-associative meditation and part love letter to a place that isn’t always great at remembering its past. Together, the fragments make the city’s transformation almost visible, one incarnation of Seattle flickering into the next. How poignant it feels may depend on how long you’ve lived here — and how many long-gone versions of Seattle you still carry around in your heart and mind.