At Land

Watching some of Maya Deren's works made me think that directors like David Lynch owe a lot to this brilliant woman.

At land is one of the most beautiful and innovative movies I have ever seen. At Land is like a dream that is brought to the screen something I don't think any other director has succeeding in doing so well. The images of the sea, of the 2 women playing chess (and every other scene) don't seem to be connected in any way, but just like a dream that you have just waken up from it leaves you with the feeling you had an experience you couldn't even think of. Very beautiful and one of Maya Deren's best films.

Very provocative to discover, again, the vision of Maya Deren . Because not the story - in few scenes, maybe too personal - less coherent or just the surrealism defining scenes but the image is the significant one.

The step from a reality to other, the cheess game and the high interest for the pawn , the trick to keep it from the ladies on beach , the walk near man at different ages and the closed door of house.

And, sure, Maya Deren , a seductive story herself grace apparence.

The reference to Alice in Wonderland, like the games of seduction as good points for me of this experimental short film.

There's less of the symbolic to grapple with in AT LAND compared to Maya Deren's MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON, although there's probably a good deal to analyze, if you're so inclined, about a woman looking for a chess pawn, then clutching it to her chest and running on a beach as her other selves look curiously at her. Less jarring (although Maya Deren does walk in on her own POV shot at one point!), more linear and sure of itself, this is almost the Lucifer Rising to Meshes' Invocation of my Demon Brother (to bring Kenneth Anger into the fold). Whereas Meshes had a syncopated, almost nervous quality about it, AT LAND is more lyrical, still dreamlike in atmosphere, but exchanging cramped apartments, hooded figures and knives for open beach spaces, giant scaffolds, and games of chess. I won't presume to know what it all means, and like Meshes, I suspect I would find the answer infinitely less satisfying or intriguing than the question itself but lovers of the avant-guard will find a lot to like.

After the claustrophobic feminist nightmare of her first film 'Meshes of the Afternoon' Ukrainian/American experimental film-maker Maya Deren made this mesmerising, bewildering, and strangely reassuring short which continues to expand upon her interest in the rhythmic potentialities of the camera as well as the representation of dream-like states that challenge traditional narrative conventions. Indeed, despite being largely stripped of the Freudian symbology which figured so prominently (some may say conspicuously) in 'Meshes…', 'At Land' is arguably more dream-like than its illustrious predecessor through its use of clever editing which matches physical movements of the lead character (Deren) from shot to shot but against different physical backdrops to create a vivid, authentic representation of a subjective inner realm.

In addition to this technique, which she would also use beautifully in her next film 'A study in Choreography for Camera', the theme of the multiple-Mayas used in 'Meshes…' reoccurs. However, while in 'Meshes…' it was created using multiple exposures of the camera film to allow the different aspects of Maya to share the same space around the kitchen table, in 'At Land' the effect is achieved through a series of eye-line matches from each of the freshly manifested Mayas as she runs along the beach triumphantly.

The film also differs from 'Meshes…' in that it is almost completely set outside and begins with Deren washing up / being born on a beach, the waves of which then roll backwards into the sea. It is a characteristic feature of Deren's films to use simple camera effects to reveal hidden worlds of motion and latent artistic possibilities in things which our everyday eye often misses. Indeed, the composition of shots in 'At Land' is incredibly aesthetic and, even though she was avowedly not a surrealist, as she wanders the dunes and stony caverns the film certainly recalls a Dali painting to the point that the inclusion of a melting clock would not feel out of place.

Deren herself stated that the film is meant to represent a form of spiritual odyssey and an individuals struggle to maintain personal identity, however I must confess my shortcomings and admit that I didn't get that from the film…if anything, for me the film was the very opposite: a reappraisal of splintered selfhood as curiously liberating. This difference of interpretation doesn't bother me though as I've always agreed with Oscar Wilde's opinion that "diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital", and certainly, while being made in 1944 disqualifies it from being labelled "new", Deren's work in general, and 'At Land' in particular, is definitely complex, and undeniably vital.

This is a remarkable short experimental film by the great Maya Deren. Deren is best remembered for the powerful short "Meshes in the Afternoon" and her dance and films about Haiti. This film is perhaps her most rigorous and complex. It is entirely silent and has a remarkable fractured narrative connected by story fragments that have a perfect dreamlike logic. Few filmmakers have come closer to creating images and actions that have such emotional intensity and intellectual suggestiveness.