And some stuff about Tomb Raider...or why I wasted the entire 13th year of my life

What are the general claims about the film as a rejection of modernist aesthetics? (anti-art, feminism, etc.)

First of all Wess says that Awesh uses a system of deconstruction and defamaliaraztion. In other words she take the everyday video game character of Laura Croft and plays with our presumptions of what it means to be Laura, or what means to play a video game. Like all postmodernist her work would be seen as frivolous to modernist and in some ways anti-feminist.

How does he support these general claims with evidence from the film itself?

He mentions certain aspects from within the film, like the voice over narration. The most striking part seems to be the way Ahwesh keeps letting Laura die. As a viewer this is both frustrating and interesting. Also he compared the film to Maya Deren's masterpiece Meshes in the Afternoon.

To what degree does the analysis correspond with your own?

For the first time in the whole article his presumptions about feminism actually make sense. The rest of what he said all sounded pretty in line with what we have learned so far in the class. This is a small point, but while I understand after he explains it the connection between Deren and Ahwesh, I think that maybe this is too much of a jump. It is jump seemingly based on nothing, which while interesting, makes me question how sound his conclusions are. Also to claim that Meshes in the Afternoon, one the few avant-garde films that I passionately love is dated, well that is just wrong.