Ensemble for Somnambulists/A Choreography for Camera-Maya Derren(1951)

Simple camera tricks turn a live performance by the Toronto Film School into a surrealistic series of living sculptures...

Once again, film auteur Maya Derren cooperates with a handful of enthusiastic volunteers, uses roughly two steak dinners worth of film budget, and uses such simple tricks as lighting, negative images , lens blurring and the freedom of a hand-held camera to turn a performance of dances and poses into a chiaroscuro melange of mood, motion and contrast like an abstract painting stretching to life...

Some critics point to the lack of a soundtrack and the shorter-than-average runtime (6 minutes) as an indicator that the feature is an unfinished work-I can only point to the craftsmanship and tight editing and disagree. What is beyond doubt however, is that this lovely piece was a prelude to the director's final film, The Very Eye of Night (1955) which expands and refines the themes present here...Silent, B&W.