User Reviews

This is the first credit on IMDb for Nazli Nour, a British poet, who hung out with the Beat Generation in Paris and is often linked with artist Liliane Lijn. Nour later married Tibetan lama Tarthang Tulku and settled with him in California. "Alone with the Monsters", made for the British Film Institute's Experimental Film Fund, may be Nour's only film, a statement of her spiritual beliefs. An old woman is jeered by a large crowd of people in the street. She makes her way home but the crowd finds where she lives and continues to laugh at her outside her door. Recalling when she was young, the woman is transformed into Nour herself. Passing from this life to another appears to curse her tormentors, who lie immobile in her street in a striking scene. Shot silent with music and effects added, the story is simplistic but clearly an artist's vision. It's possible that the inexperienced Nour had ideas that could be realised by cameraman Walter Lassally, much in demand for shorts in the 1950s. (He was soon to become part of the British kitchen sink movement before working internationally). The view from the crowd's world into the old woman's is a bold concept and the transitions from old to young woman are simple but effective. The film is available to view for free on BFI Player and has now been added to the BFI DVD/BluRay of "Dementia". It's a very complementary addition to the cult psychodrama.