Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania

In 1972, Jonas and Adolfas Mekas returned to visit their family in Lithuania for the first time since they had emigrated to America 27 years earlier. Both brothers made films of the event. Jonas Mekas' version is his most formally ambitious work to date: a film in three dissimilar parts designed to explore the relationship between residence, exile, and the experience of visiting a 'foreign' place. It begins somewhat like a conventional documentary, with material examining the ghettoes of New York in the '50s, where the Mekas immigrants first made their homes, then shifts into a less predictable 'diary' mode for the reunion with the family in Lithuania itself, and then moves on to self-questioning footage shot in Europe on the way back to America. The basic romanticism is patently sincere, but sometimes looks like a defensive pose, which makes it all the more poignant.