Meshes of the Afternoon

A woman enters her domicile with lots of shots of her nice manicured feet as she witnesses a knife, vertigo, a shrouded phantom with a face of glass, a strange man, the sea, falling asleep in her couch, sensual arousal, etc., as dream and reality blur into a finale of tragedy and summation. Shot in black and white this is one of the better and successful shorts from the wartime period that touches on Freudian immersions with a storytelling flair for drama and enigma. Maya Deren's most noted artistic effort the film assured her place among experimental female directors and is an interesting historical artifact in avant-garde cinema.

Maya Deren's "Meshes of the Afternoon" is an amazing 15 minute journey into the subconscious. It's like "Un Chien Andalou" seen through the eyes of a woman. In the film it's hard to tell when Maya's character is awake or dreaming. This film is chock full of bizarre and creepy surrealist images. The protagonist drops her key and it bounces like a ball. A knife moves from a loaf of bread, then the key turns into a knife. She carries a flower with her, which she holds upside down. She sees death, who where's a black hood and has a mirror for a face. She see's herself dreaming. In her dream she seems to foresee her own death. Deren seems to have a subconscious fear of knives, or being killed by a knife. This is one crazy little short film that almost puts you in a hypnotic trance with it's creepy Avant-Gard sounds and images. It's very poetic and disturbing, as nothing is what it seems. This is a must see for fans of David Lynch and Bunuel.

Laden with symbolic imagery, this short film focuses on the struggle of a woman to find her identity independent of men, emotional baggage and societal expectations. Constantly chased by a doppelganger, Maya is confronted with the many aspects of herself at the dinner table. One of her personalities must commit murder to free her. Is she saved from the flower of womanhood or die without expectations?

I suggest watching the movie a few times through to catch all of the imagery and keeping Freud in mind when distilling the symbolism. This film is very interesting and beautiful independent of theme. Definitely worth a look!

Its just so unfortunate to not have 'Maya Daren' with us today. Her exemplary direction with perfect length of her movies makes her a legend in short film category.

Meshes of the Afternoon has everything that no one has ever seen before, in terms of abstraction, philosophy, movie making.. everything is just so beautiful. Her movies cannot be categorized into any available genres, cos' no on e really makes movie of her sort.

A girl entangled into a recursive event which by the directorial pattern looks like a figment of her own imagination. It seems like she is waiting for her lover or something like that and then she finds her replicas all around her haunting her and finally killing her. It also seems that Maya's other short film 'At Land' is a sequel to 'Meshes of the Afternoon' for she keeps alive the same passion and abstraction and romance in 'At Land'.

All in all, its one of the best attempts I have seen. If you believe in movies you cannot miss it.

Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) is a 14 minute short film directed by Maya Daren, who also stars as the film's lead. It is a surreal horror movie that tells the story of a woman who comes across a flower, deliberately laid in her path by a hooded figure. She takes the flower home with her and smells it, breathing in its poisonous aroma. The unnamed woman then falls asleep and starts to experience vivid dreams that may just well be reality. Who was the person who gave her this flower? What was their motive? This short film is one of the best short films I have personally seen up to now. It was creepy and the imagery was, at times, terrifying. I'll definitely be watching more of Maya Deren's filmography.