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Madame Beudet / Meshes of the Afternoon / Saute ma ville

Screening on Film
  • The Smiling Madame Beudet (La souriante Madame Beudet)

    Directed by Germaine Dulac.
    With Alexandre Arquillière, Germaine Dermoz, Madeleine Guitty.
    France, 1922, 16mm, black & white, silent, 32 min.

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.

  • Meshes of the Afternoon

    Directed by Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid.
    With Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid.
    US, 1943, 35mm, black & white, 18 min.

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.

  • Saute ma ville

    Directed by Chantal Akerman.
    With Chantal Akerman.
    Belgium, 1968, 35mm, black & white, 11 min.
    French with English subtitles.

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.

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From the collection – Satyajit Ray