Emak-Bakia

Man Ray | France | 1927 | Short, 18 min

October 13, 2012


Emak-Bakia. Written, photographed and directed by Man Ray (1890-1976). First shown at the Studio des Ursulines, Paris, in 1927. Cast: Alice "Kiki" Prin (Girl with painted eyes).

Ray considered the film a surrealist work, but noted: "My Surrealist friends whom I had invited to the showing were not very enthusiastic, although I thought I had complied with all the principles of Surrealism: irrationality, automatism, psychological and dreamlike sequences without apparent logic, and complete disregard of conventional story-telling."

"Ray named this provocative film for the Basque villa where some of it was shot. ('Emak Bakis' means 'Leave Me Alone' in Basque.) Exhibiting his early Dada affiliation, it combines a series of visual metaphors in a nonlinear structure. Juxtaposing images that evoke the elements of cinema—a multi-eyed camera, neon and street lights projecting into darkness, prisms reflecting light—with Dada emblems, such as dice, and introducing a fragmented narrative, Ray uses 'all the tricks that might annoy certain spectators.' He described it as '...not an abstract film or a story-teller; its reasons for being are its inventions of light forms and movement, while the more objective parts interrupt the monotomy of abstract inventions or serve as punctuation."

—Museum of Modern Art program notes