LAST OF THE PERSIMMONS opens with a black-and-white image of a main inflating helium balloons in the shape of rabbits. Onto this image Mr. O'Neill places two mirror images an old Fleischer-style cartoon elephant comically licking its mouth as if in anticipation of yet another layered image, that of a ripe persimmon. —Manohla Dargis, "In the Studio's Shadow, An Avant-Garde Eye," The New York Times, 11/8/2004