ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the film Aimless Walk directed by Alexandr Hackenschmied. In 1930, Czech avant-garde photographer and critic Alexandr Hackenschmied, who would change his name to Hammid when he emigrated to the United States, borrowed a Kinamo camera and made a truly independent film. Aimless Walk can be considered a city symphony about Prague with a centrifugal effect. What's more, one half of him returns to the city center of Prague, while his doppelganger stays on the outskirts. The film premiered in a program Hackenschmied himself organized in Prague between November 1930 and February 1931, comprising other city symphonies such as Alberto Cavalcanti's Rien que les heures, Vigo's A propos de Nice, and Mikhail Kaufman's In Spring. After his first film Aimless Walk, Hackenschmied made another city symphony, Prague Castle.
