At Land1944

At Land is another of Maya Deren's dream like films. The message which it transmits to and its main subject rests on the idea of the mutability of a personality. Maya said once that this film was made to show people the struggle to maintain the personal identity. The whole film has only 15 minutes, in which a whole life is subjectively described. It was made in the year of 1944, and Deren was the one who wrote, directed and played,the featured role in it, just like in her first movie Meshes of the Afternoon. Maya Deren is laying on the sand, and the ocean's waves are coming and going like if she had been spelled from it. This symbolic birth from the sea was particularly chosen to make us think of the role of education. She came from the sea, different from all the others who had influences and rules to follow since were born. Having the chance to find out by herself who she is and what she is doing there at that specific moment, like in a natural way maya would say, make her run. The film is all about her world exploration, her curiosity to discover what is in there, criticizing the society at that time which was not curious to know if there was any truth besides television or Hollywood. At the end, she chooses to go back to the sea after her incessant odyssey at land to find an identity.