AllMovie

We first see Annette Michelson during one of her intensive sessions with her psychiatrist. For the next 125 minutes, we have a ringside seat to Michelson's stream-of-consciousness ramblings, augmented by fragmentary surrealistic shots culled from modern Berlin and revolutionary Russia. At one point, Leon Trotsky makes a "guest appearance" as an obscene phone caller! Filmmaker Yvonne Rainer invites the audience not only to observe but also to vicariously participate in Michelson's mental side trips, choreographing her imagery as deftly as she'd previously staged her numbers at San Francisco's Judson Dance Theater. Journeys From Berlin--1971 was the fourth of Rainer's feature length endeavors.