Movie Reviews for Writers: The Adventures of Anais Nin

After watching this docu-drama, I regret not having a deeper bench of Nin’s work rattling around in my brain. She seems like a very experiential writer who saw with world with the sense of wonder that C.S. Lewis called Sechunct, almost a sort of magical realism tinted glasses, although her experience was far more sensual than Lewis’s spiritual. 

While this film covers Nin’s sexual life in detail, it also has a remarkable depth in exploring her writing life. Of course, for Nin, those two were intertwined, almost symbiotic, and I’m willing to bet that’s not the case for most of us. 

But we’re here for what the movie says about the writing life and the act of writing. 

My favorite line from the film is this one taken from Nin’s diaries: “Few know how many women there are in me. When ordinary life shackles me, I escape one way or another.” 

To me, this sums up the writer’s psyche perfectly. Others have phrased it as there are worlds within me. Other, less spiritually tinged writers simply say that they are filled with stories. But I really love the way Nin calls these other women out as, well, other women. Of course she would; it ties in perfectly with her more experiential approach as a writer. 

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