[Miss Deren's] movies, which she once called "Abandoned Films" and now calls "Films in the Classicist Tradition," are Freudian-toned, lesbianish, freezing, arty, eclectic, conventional and safe. Utilizing real environments and people, they show people who look mesmerized or often ghostly moving through situations that have been contrived to have some Freudian meaning. You are always conscious of a mechanical-mindedness because of the pretense and self-consciousness of the acting, the labored arrangement of objects and people, and Miss Deren's fascination for trick effects with acting, composing and camera. The bleakness of these brief films comes out in the hard, stolid treatment of subject matter. Whether she is filming a perfect stretch of Long Island beach or a mugging esthete, her touch is totally lacking in sensuousness, humor and love, and she seems to petrify the subject until it takes on the character of a museum piece. The lack of...