Employing techniques of early French impressionistic style, Germaine Dulac’s The Smiling Madame Beudet is often viewed as an early feminist film. Romantic Madame Beudet is married to a dull, insensitive oaf. She dreams of taking lovers and of killing the husband off, but her plans to do him in are ironically twisted in the end.

Russian-born poet and dancer Maya Deren began her work in film with a modest, black-and-white psychodrama shot by her husband, Czech documentary maker Alexander Hammid. Her Meshes of the Afternoon, a suicidal tale about a young woman (played by Deren), showed the marked influence of Surrealism, and in particular of Jean Cocteau’s early films, in its symbol-laden, dreamlike portrayal of sexual anxiety.

Written and directed when Chantal Akerman was a mere eighteen years old, Saute ma ville is the tragicomic story of a young woman (played by Akerman) who seals herself in the kitchen, eats some pasta, shines her shoes, lights the gas—and blows up the town.