Week 5 Films

Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) Maya Deren

               I had seen this before in art class but didn’t properly appreciate it as a surrealist film. It was easy to see a direct relationship between surrealist painting and film this time around. The flower visual from the start looks straight out a Dali painting. I enjoyed how this film depicted a self-referential dream, as opposed to the other surrealist films we have seen. This particularly interests me because I am considering using my own dreams as image material for my senior thesis. It was very effective to sometimes have the scene depicted from her point of view and at other times having Deren herself in the shot. Showing her in bed was unexpectedly dreamlike as well because often we dream about waking up from another dream. And of course the visual of the continually chasing after the nun with the mirror face was delightfully nightmarish.

Cleo from 5 -7 (1962) Agnes Varda

               I loved this film. It was a beautifully subtle and really felt like a women’s film—particularly when Cleo, her manager, and the taxi driver are all chatting. The characters seemed very lifelike, and I appreciated that Cleo was even likeable in the beginning when she acted like a spoiled child. The visual of her doing pull-ups in that ridiculous fluffy robe and her wig were perfection. And it was very interesting to see her appear much more mature once she changes out of the wig and the fluff and goes about on her own. I loved the way Varda mixed mainstream film techniques with avant-garde—including posed portraits of her manager and songwriter amidst all the people naturally looking at the camera and the way she sings straight on against a dark background, until the camera pulls away and reveals that she was actually in the room’s natural set up. That zoom out shot reminded me of a similar one in The Graduate. Also, towards the beginning, the way the shot was composed when Cleo listens to the couple’s conversation in the café was very painterly—it looked like a divided canvas with Cleo set against the background of the mirror. It was clever how Varda used mirrors and other reflective surfaces often to symbolize her vanity.

Asparagus (1979) Susan Pitt

               Asparagus was crazy. Personally I thought it went on a little too long—that tends to pull me out the dream. Though I did appreciate how much I wanted to see her face but it remained a mystery.  I also liked the visual where she is standing in the ballroom and a series of flowers passes by her between the curtains. I’m not sure if the blatant but comical sexuality was ironic or celebratory, but it certainly got a strong (I think positive) reaction out of all of us. And that’s what the avant-garde should do.