Response for Wednesday Nov. 14th

A lot of good films on Wednesday. I especially enjoyed Maya Deren's "meshes of the afternoon" it was the second time I saw the film and I really developed a higher appreciation for the film the second time around. The first time I saw this film I didn't notice the sutler details like the way the compositions match from shot to shot, It makes the transitions very smooth and organic. I am not exactly sure what happened in the narrative, but I interpreted it as a suicide I'm not sure if that's what the filmmakers were going for but for some reason that's how i saw it maybe because of the shots of the women chasing after death. also all the different versions of the women sitting at the table gave me the impression of some kind of internal struggle she was having with herself (e.g. depression, schizophrenia), but there were so many different things going on I'm sure the film could be interpreted many different ways. The film really had some powerful symbolism like the way they portrayed death with a mirror face or the key which kept reappearring and the reflection of the knive. the ending of the film was surprising I expected the ending to involve the knife in some kind of way and was surprised when they showed the women covered in pieces of broken mirror bleeding. I also liked the Shirley Clarke piece "bridges go around" the cinematography in film was amazing. I loved the scene where she layered the different shots of buildings filmed from the top panning to the bottom, when layered it really felt like you were watching buildings grow as plants do. the film had amazing patterns in it as well when it first started i noticed alot of x's and intersecting lines in the structures and then the film goes on to layer shots into more intersecting lines. the colors used in the film were incredible I wonder if she used any type of filters or effects. the scenes with pinkish, orangish sky was very surreal. this film gave me a lot of ideas about how I could shoot my third trek. after seeing it I really want to experiment with layering shots. the only film I didn't really like was the Leighton Pierce piece entitled "you can drive the big rigs" I found this film extremely boring It seemed to go on forever and I think the filmmaker could have made his point in a lot less time, Although i was intrigued by some of the sound clips but about half way through the movie my A.D.D. kicked in and I don't really remember much of the ending of that film.

-Gary Ahmed