Through an Open Window

Eric Mendelsohn's first film was warmly received by the critics at its première last year in Cannes. Elaine Paterson (Time Out) spoke of 'a debut of rare maturity; cinematic in the purest sense'.In an outer suburb of New York a bird flies into the house of an elderly woman. The event completely unsettles the mentally-unstable woman; she loses her sense of security and order and flees from the house. But outside, she finds an unpredictable world which is just as strange to her as the house to the bird. Slowly but surely she loses control over her emotions.Mendelsohn makes skilful use of audio-visual means to suggest the woman's growing disorientation. He shot his film in black & white in order to avoid distracting the viewer from the woman's feelings. Mendelsohn was inspired by the work of Hitchcock and Polanski, especially by Repulsion.