The Very Eye of Night-Maya Deren(1955)

A normal ballet performance by accomplished dancers transmutes into a surreal, alien and gravity-defying study in movement and music...

Once again, undeservedly-obscure director Maya Deren gives the audience an amazing film on the budget of a trip to the grocery store...with rotating angles, jump cuts, superimposition against a backdrop, negative images and other tricks easily accomplished in any common darkroom, our filmmaker turns an ordinary performance into a riot of images as humanoids cavort and glide in defiance of gravity against a cosmic background. Between Deren's imagry and the soundtrack of Teiji Ito the 15 minutes of this performance just fly by!

Sadly, this was Maya Deren's last film before her untimely death. Sound, B&W.