Chick Strand's love affair with Mexico and her numerous sojourns there have provided fertile inspiration for a number of her films, both early and recent. For Strand, Mexico seems to be a site both of sensual exultation and pensive contemplation, provoking at times a yearning for a lost innocence, at times a quest for knowledge and intimacy, and at times an intoxication with colors, textures and enigmatic images. Combining bits of poetry and song with haunting, evocative images, Guacamole (1976, 10 mins, Color) and Mujer de Milfuegos (1976, 15 mins, Color) are "cine-poems in the tragic rather than the celebratory mode" (Anthony Reveaux). While Guacamole suggests the life-death polarity of fiesta and bullfight, Mujer de Milfuegos broodingly evokes the consciousness of rural women and the daily repetitive tasks that take on the form of obsessive rituals. Anselmo (1967, 4 mins, Color), a lyrical "celebration of wishes and tubas" (CS), and Cosas de Mi Vida (1976, 25 mins, Color) are stylistically diverse tributes to her friend Anselmo Aguascalientes and his struggle for survival. The more recent By the Lake (1986, 10 mins, Color) is a collage of Mexican images and sounds, "an Anglo woman's interpretation of magic realism" (CS), while Artificial Paradise (1986, 13 mins, Color) evokes "the anthropologist's most human desire, the ultimate contact with the informant" and "the acceptance of the romantic heart and a soul without innocence." (CS)-Irina Leimbacher