Lost Lost Lost & Walden: Two Diary Films by Jonas Mekas

This compilation offers a very generous introduction to the work of Jonas Mekas, one of the most important figures in the American experimental film scene, who wrote about cinema in media outlets such as The Village Voice during the 1960s and in 1964 co-founded the Film-makers' Cinemathèque, forerunner of New York's Anthology Film Archives—a major repository of avant-garde films. Mekas also began making films of his own, including brief autobiographical entries for a series he dubbed “Diaries, Notes and Sketches,” which he collected into compilations called “Diary Films.” Two of these form the bulk of this set: Walden (1969) covers the years 1964-68 in roughly chronological order and includes shots of family celebrations and encounters with a wide variety of notables; Lost Lost Lost (1976) collects material from Mekas's experiences with his younger brother Adolfas in the ‘50s and early ‘60s as they settled first into a Lithuanian community in Brooklyn, then moved to the East Village, and finally decamped to Vermont for a film project. Walden has been available previously on DVD before (see review in VL-11/09), but Lost Lost Lost is making its premiere on disc. The impressive extras include audio commentary on both films by Mekas, six of Mekas's short films, and Gideon Bachmann's Jonas (1968), in which Mekas walks around the city and talks about filmmaking, as well as a booklet with an essay by film critic Ed Halter. Recommended. (F. Swietek)