Joy Street Review

I think this hand-painted animation gives a special flavor to Pitt’s works. After the visual poetry explosion of Asparagus, he embarks on a more personal, more introspective journey. The movie begins in a grey, drab apartment. Our main female character has literally melted away, everything is dull, dim and narrow. The walls are closing in, time is getting heavier. It makes one feel very clearly how modern life is slowly emptying people out.

Then things change. A small mouse figurine that looks like china comes to life and carries the woman away. An ordinary park suddenly turns into a psychedelic forest. Colors are exploding, plants are pulsing, everything is flowing, dancing. Pitt’s experiences in the rainforest literally spill over here. Forms are melting, bodies are becoming fluid, time does not comply with normal. Complete dream logic. Symbolism side The mouse here is the carrier of innocence, childlike creativity and the pure state of nature.

That gray routine in the city, loneliness, belongings… all of these are things that do not actually keep a woman alive, but even extinguish her. Pitt shows this very well: Happiness and renewal often come from the most unexpected, seemingly ordinary places. A trinket, a park corner, a burst of color… As long as we can see it. The forest scenes are pretty much like a psychedelic baptism. Every leaf, every flower is alive and connected.

As the woman surrenders to this flow, she gathers herself again. When he comes back to the apartment, his look out the window is completely different. There is joy there now. While the artist-society tension is more at the forefront in General Asparagus, Joy Street mostly builds the bridge between the inner world of the individual and nature. The mask and the fluidity of identity are still there, but this time in a more healing, hopeful atmosphere.

The spirit of Maya Deren continues, but it is more autobiographical. In short, one of Pitt’s most emotional and transformative films. It opens the subconscious with its psychedelic visuals and asks “where can real happiness come from?” It answers the question from the most unexpected place.