The Way to Shadow Garden (2020) User Reviews

Meshes at Midnight

[st-shot · 6/10 · 30 January 2021]

I wasn't aware legendary experimental film maker Stan Brakahage once lived in the same apartment as Maya Deren when I viewed this Meshes in the Afternoon knock-off. The influence was clear but the violence more than implied as Brakhage began to move away from the ambiguous narrative of his first film Interim into the more nebulous and experimental field that would bring the art form to a place it had never been before. It's a heavy handed, brutish work that defies interpretation and while I find it pretentious and abrasive for the most part the sublime and powerful transition late in the film gives this viewer the feeling it is Brakhage's response to the paranoia surrounding the nuclear threat of the 50s. Only Stan knows for sure.

Brakhage in search of his style

[Horst_In_Translation · 2/10 · 11 May 2016]

"The Way to Shadow Garden" is an 11-minute movie from over 60 years ago that was written and directed by Stan Brakhage extremely early in his career. It is very different compared to some of his later works. There is a lead actor in here, it has sound, it is in black-and-white and it somewhat has elements of a plot and story, only to mention some aspects. However, it is still not a success in terms of filmmaking and judging from this one, I don't see a great deal of talent. I personally found it rather bizarre and annoying than memorable or interesting. I do not think it is a deserving watch and I felt it dragged on more than one occasions. Thumbs down.

A Voyage Into The Inner Mind

[Seamus2829 · 10/10 · 6 November 2007]

I first had the opportunity to see this trippy little short some years back at a retrospective of Brakhage's work at one of my local art gallery. I had seen David Lynch's 'Eraserhead' some years earlier, and thought, ZOUNDS! I wondered then if anybody could make a film that was as trippy and messed up as that one (in the good sense,of course). After seeing 'The Way To Shadow Garden', I thought, okay, I can see where Lynch got his inspiration for Eraserhead. This is a psycho-sexual fever dream, where the protagonist arrives at his apartment, scans the room, anticipates that something potentially disturbing went on, and decides to gouge his eyes out, and retreats into a sort of garden of shadows (provided here via the means of reverse film). This is not a film for the faint of heart, but is an important one for film students who are interested in one of the early pioneers of experimental cinema.