Meditation on Violence

There are two threads running throughout the oeuvre of Ukrainian-born American experimental film-maker Maya Deren: the first, and the one which she executed most effectively in her first film "Meshes in the Afternoon" (1943), is the exploration of women's identity; and the second, which dominated her later films beginning with "A study in choreography for camera" (1945), is dance. Or, maybe it would be more accurate to say that the second common thread in her movies is movement – and often, but not exclusively (as the reverse rolling waves from the beginning of her second film "At Land" (1944) will attest) the form which expresses this movement is dance. However, the concept of "Meditation on violence" is that, in giving the whole of the 12 minutes of the film to a martial artist demonstrating his moves – at first inside and bare-hand, and then outside with a sword – Deren is able to conflate the potential violence inherent in the form with the elegance of a dancer. Then, two-thirds of the way through the film she plays the film in reverse but the moves of the martial artist up to that point are so fluid and natural and its possible to overlook this were it not for a couple of gestures and, as a result, effectively using the human body to show the beauty of perpetual fluid motion.

However, all this being said, I didn't enjoy this movie and despite its relative brevity I found myself bored after a couple of minutes. I felt this as, not being a dancer, I don't have the same fascination with the human body that Deren herself obviously had. What's more, while Kung Fu hadn't entered the pop-culture lexicon back in 1948, in the decades post-Bruce Lee and from the grandiose movies of Zhang Yimou, the balletic quality of martial arts is not such an exotic concept. Kudos for Deren for probably being the first to do so, but I was bored nonetheless. Saying this, I don't wish to sound like a complete philistine as, indeed, it was through watching Deren's own "A study in choreography for camera" that I learned to appreciate, albeit superficially, the beauty of the human form in motion. However, "A study…" is only 2 minutes long compared to the 12 of "Meditation…". Furthermore, while dance would also go on to dominate "The Very Eye of Night" (1958), in this latter film Deren employs her hallmark creative editing techniques to give the appearance of a dream or hallucination whereas in "Meditation…" I suspect she wished to simply use the human body as the subject and show the elegance of movement it's capable of unadorned with cinematic artifice. Admirable, and not without merit, but "Mediation on violence" stands as Deren's least satisfying film for me.

Meditation on Violence is IMO Maya Deren's best film. The idea for this film belonged to Chao Li Chi who met Maya Deren just after she returned to NY from Haiti where she had become a voodoo believer. Chao Li Chi who was a martial arts expert and had also just finished his studies disagreed with Maya who believed in the possesion of human beings by supernatural forces (gods or spirits) something she was taught in Haiti at the voodoo rituals something she was infatuated with until her death at a rather young age. Chao Li Chi believed the wise man should be in position to possess natural forces and not the other way round.

Chao Li Chi in an excellent performance attempts to display the ideals of the Wu Tang philosophy which is a philosophy of constant motion according to which the perfect form is that of no form (which is achieved when you're in a state of constant motion). At least that's what I understood after listening to an interview by Chao Li Chi himself where he spoke about this film.

Maya's lack of money (a problem Maya always had with her projects) made them film in Maya's small apartment and since there wasn't enough room for Chao Li Chi to perform they had to move all the furniture to the kitchen. Despite all the difficulties this film is excellent and much better than other films where millions of dollars were spent.

"Meditation on Violence" is another short film by Maya Deren, made after her "Ritual in Transfigured Time"; thus, this is her 6th film. Again the Avant-garde filmmaker incorporates dance, as she had in her "Study in Choreography for Camera" and the beauty of movement to create a surrealistic film about martial arts. The one man featured here is Chao Li Chi, and for 12 minutes we witness a dreamlike picture of martial arts performed with grace and beauty.

Sadly, I regret to say that this film got boring rather quickly, as more than half the 12 minutes is the artist gesturing and kicking in front of a white (or black) backdrop. The part in which Li Chi appears outside in what looks like a small arena with a sword is the most interesting part, as the camera literally moves with him to create an impact. In other words, this short is too lengthy and repetitive, and while starting out interesting becomes dull after four minutes of the same moves.

This problem could have been fixed if Deren had simply made the film shorter into more like six or eight minutes. I love the techniques and the movement, I only wish it had been put in a shorter run time. In addition, this short is different from her earliest work because of the lack of a hidden narrative. When I watch a Deren film I normally try to analyze what the hidden message of the imagery presented is. But this is not like her previous works, it's a work of art from start to finish which does not bug me. It is beautiful and perfectly captures the art of martial arts. Now if only Deren hadn't stuck us with 12 minutes of the same moves performed repetitively...

Definitely worth seeing as a work of art, which it undoubtedly succeeds in creating. However, because of just how long it is, there is no doubt a trip to the editing studios would have improved the dull repetitiveness that much of this short is.

In Meditation on Violence, Maya Deren captures and recreates a Haitian dancer's intense momentum, editing close-ups and medium shots together well. The three-part structure, where the dancer wears a costume in the 2nd part while he is topless in the 1st and 3rd, adds visual and psychological dynamics.