Notes on Marie Menken

Notes on Marie Menken shines a quavering if welcome ray of light on a largely forgotten figure in the American avant-garde film scene of the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s.

Handsome tribute is paid to the eponymous experimental filmmaker in Notes on Marie Menken, the fourth feature by Austrian docu helmer Martina Kudlacek, who previously made "In the Mirror of Maya Deren."

While Kudlacek lets some of the elder statesmen ramble, their recollections are a vivid, firsthand window into a bygone era of American art.

While it opens a rare window into an unconventional life, this portrait of an artist as an old woman is prone to strange distractions.