Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
Emak-Bakia (Basque for Leave me alone) is a 1926 film directed by Man Ray. Subtitled as a cinépoéme, it features many techniques Man Ray used in his still photography (for which he is better known), including Rayographs, double exposure, soft focus and ambiguous features. The film features sculptures by Pablo Picasso, and some of Man Ray's mathematical objects both still and animated using a stop motion technique.
Emak-Bakia is a landmark Surrealist avant-garde short that translates Man Ray's photographic innovations—Rayographs, double exposures, solarization—into motion picture form with extraordinary inventiveness. Cinematography earns a 4 for its genuinely pioneering visual experimentation, techniques that were wholly singular for 1926 and remain striking today. Novelty is equally 4: as a 'cinépoème,' it defies narrative convention with a voice and conception that is unmistakably Man Ray's and has no real equivalent. Plot and Acting score lower since conventional narrative and performance are essentially absent by design—the film is purely visual poetry. The ending, with its famous eye-collage gag, is memorable and witty but not as sustained or revelatory as the film's middle passages.