Menilmontant (1926) - Dimitri Kirsanoff

This film is slightly longer than the others, but certainly not a feature. Kirsanoff's film is told very much in the Impressionist style characteristic of many French films of the era. The story is logical, and there are no real abstract themes, but through various tricks and devices the language of film is used to represent psychological states of his characters. The story for the sake of argument is about a poor man and woman who can't afford to feed themselves let alone their child. The ever popular dream sequence appears, and of course what dream sequence is complete without superimposed random nudity? That said this film is a treasure considering how very few Impressionist films ever have been released in the US, let alone on DVD, so for once you'll actually have a point of reference when the next film textbook starts talking about how important the movement was. Considering this occured simultaneously with the Soviet Avant-Garde movement its hard to say if the editing patterns here were influential there.