Maids of Honor(1975)

Name: Maids of Honor
Director: Juan Downey
Released: 1975-01-01
Duration: 20 min
Cast: Carmen Beuchat, Suzanne Harris

Carmen Beuchat Suzanne Harris

Las Meninas is a brilliant essay on illusionism, mirrors and perception in art, life and video, articulated by Downey as a subjective interpretation of Velasquez's eponymous Baroque masterpiece. Through a theatrical reenactment of the painting's pictorial tableau and a re-articulation of its complex perspectival structure, Downey brings to life the spatial dynamics, illustrating the psychological tension of the relationship between viewer and subject. Placing Las Meninas in a historical context, Downey relates the painting's thematics to Spain's economic and political systems of the late 17th century.