Silently, a woman wakes on a beach as the tides go in reverse. Her dreamscape unfolds as she tries to locate a chess piece traveling from the beach to a party to a country road and then back.

At Land is first and foremost a dream projection. Meaning that, while if it’s either surreal or not, what we see is a not the narration of a dream or even the interpretation of a dream; it’s the shared experience of a dream. Like, in dreams, you change from one location to another, or the person you are talking to suddenly become somebody else, or a Walt Disney look alike in a bed may be creepy, without any logical reaction to the strange nature of it because while you are dreaming you are just experiencing it, not trying to understand it. I strongly suggest that with this film, in fact, most of Deren’s films, to let got to the rational function of “understanding” and just flow with it.

I don’t think that most of Lynch or Buñuel’s films are really onirical, maybe they are surrealistic on an absourdist level or rich on Jungian symbolism, but in the end, they have a basic narrative structure and usually bring a closure to whatever the film is about. Maya Deren’s At Land is not based on rethorical figures or a discernible point; I don’t even think there is no explicit symbolism to it (maybe Deren has explained it in some essay, but I haven’t read her yet). It’s experiencing the whole thing as if we are in Deren’s head while she is dreaming. Of course, this implies the alienation of most viewers who may be in need of closure. Few films are successful as shared dreams, Malle’s Black Moon or Jean Cocteau’s Blood of a Poet come to mind.

Comercially, Kubrick tried and achieved to some extend the share dream with Wide Eyes Shut, but it’s only last year’s blockbuster Inception the one which has nailed it. Of all the references that are to be found about the excellent Inception, At Land it’s the most clear influence, from the beach opening to the dream experience to the search of the totem and getting back to the first “dream layer”.

So, even 60 years and something later, Deren is still a truly influential filmmaker.

	
At.Land.1944.1080p.BluRay.FLAC.2.0.x264-KoMI.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	15 min 29 s
Size: 	1.32 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	1420x1080 
Aspect ratio:  	4:3
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
Bit rate: 	12.0 Mb/s
BPP: 	0.326
Audio
#1:  	zxx 2.0ch FLAC @ 134 kb/s
#2:  	English 2.0ch AAC LC @ 43.6 kb/s (Commentary by film curator Thomas Beard)

https://nitro.download/view/5B948AA1F609E18/At.Land.1944.1080p.BluRay.FLAC.2.0.x264-KoMI.mkv

Language(s):Silent, English (commentary)
Subtitles:None

The post Maya Deren – At Land (1944) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

A solitary flower on a long driveway, a key falling, a door unlocked, a knife in a loaf of bread, a phone off the hook: discordant images a woman sees as she comes home. She naps and, perhaps, dreams. She sees a hooded figure going down the driveway. The knife is on the stair, then in her bed. The hooded figure puts the flower on her bed then disappears. The woman sees it all happen again. Downstairs, she naps, this time in a chair. She awakes to see a man going upstairs with the flower. He puts it on the bed. The knife is handy. Can these dream-like sequences end happily? A mirror breaks, the man enters the house again. Will he find her?

868MB | 14mn 6s | 1036×720 | mkv

http://nitroflare.com/view/7A90C214FC3C57D/Meshes.of.the.Afternoon.1943.720p.BluRay.SILENT.x264-NCmt.mkv

Language(s):No Dialogue
Subtitles:None

The post Maya Deren & Alexander Hammid – Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Silently, a woman wakes on a beach as the tides go in reverse. Her dreamscape unfolds as she tries to locate a chess piece traveling from the beach to a party to a country road and then back.

1.06GB | 15m 29s | 946×720 | mkv

https://nitroflare.com/view/7604CF0912E0448/At.Land.1944.720p.x264.mkv

Language:English commentary from film curator Thomas Beard
Subtitles:None

The post Maya Deren – At Land (1944) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

PLOT DESCRIPTION
The Forgotten Village in this powerful 68-minute documentary is an unnamed, poverty-stricken Mexican community. Living in deplorable conditions, the villagers must not only contend with the elements but with their own lack of inner resourcefulness. In grim detail, the film records the life-cycle of a typical peasant family, from birth to death. Perhaps as a sop to the Mexican authorities, the film ends with the assurance that new government programs have been placed into effect to help the unfortunates depicted on screen. The narration for The Forgotten Village was written by novelist John Steinbeck and spoken by Burgess Meredith, who in 1939 starred in the film version of Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

655MB | 1 h 5 min | 320×240 | avi

https://nitroflare.com/view/70F5239780E731D/forgotten_village.mpg

Language:English
Subtitles:None

The post Herbert Kline – The Forgotten Village (1941) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
Alexander Hammid’s intimate study of a female cat and the birth and maturation of her five kittens.

https://nitro.download/view/FF59ED36913BCF6/The_Private_Life_of_a_Cat_(1945).mkv

Language:Silent

The post Alexander Hammid & Maya Deren – The Private Life of a Cat (1944) first appeared on Cinema of the World.