After Anyuta
From the Archives
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10m
In this modern reimagining of Anton Chekhov's short story, "Anyuta" (1886), a young woman spends the day posing as a life model for a medical student and a neighboring artist. Clemy Clarke directs a script written by C.C. Kellogg and their film, “After Anyuta,” is an incisive portrait of the interiority of a young woman passed around like property between two men. Anyuta shares a cramped, cluttered apartment with a medical student named Steven, who beckons her when needed to disrobe and model for him, demonstrating for instance where the ribs sit in the ribcage. When their downstairs neighbor, an artist by the name of Ferris, comes in need of a model himself, he asks Steven to “lend me Anyuta for a couple of hours.” The fact that he poses the question to Steven rather than Anyuta positions the viewer in the realm of the commentary on display. It’s a conversation starter, complex, uncomfortable, with flashes of defiance cutting through old-time gender dynamics.
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