At Land Maya Deren Analysis

Maya Deren, an incredibly well-known and well-regarded avant-garde filmmaker, entered the scene in 1943, with the release of her first film, created in collaboration with her husband Hammid: Meshes of the Afternoon. Deren would go on to create a number of other films, most notably At Land, A Study in Choreography for the Camera, and Ritual in Transfigured Time. Deren’s work has been picked at and analyzed by a number of critics over the years, looking at the role of the individual, the flexibility of time and space through the medium of film, and the juxtaposition of dreams and reality. There are many lenses through which the movies of Deren can be viewed, but several threads run through each of her films, and to some extent follow the life
From here, she bit by bit enters different locales in the pursuit of a chess piece (specifically the queen). Impossible spans are covered in the blink of an eye, as Deren climbs up a tree to find herself inside a dinner party, completely invisible to the rest of the individuals present. A review in the New Standard from 1946 describes the interior of the party as “too dark and too cold,” (Farber, 555) and this does not seem to be any mistake. The outdoor sequences in Deren’s films are bright, full of life and mystique. They are naturalistic films, if surrealistic. Deren’s character is, after all, born of the sea. Here, Deren touches on the mystical through her cutting technique, allowing for the juxtaposition of several disparate places. This is only further emphasized through the ESP-like powers exhibited by Deren’s character in moving the pieces on the chessboard (an effect Deren achieves through the use of stop-motion film). This pursuit of the queen drives the action of the entire film, as it winds up falling through the hole in reality that Deren entered as it makes its way down to the beach and beyond. This film, it would seem, reflects the path of life itself, which Deren shrinks down to a manageable size by reducing time through the concept of “tempo and tension.” This can happen through having a person cover large distances in only a few seconds of real time, such as Deren running through the dunes, or through more staccato cuts in general. Another way Deren does this is the “walk-of-life”-esque sequence where each step Deren takes enters a new type of land altogether – from sand to grass to dirt etc. This extends to her other films as well, most notably A Study in Choreography for the Camera, as the dancer leaps from the outdoors, to a museum, and back to the outdoors in effortless bounds. At Land is, at its core, an